Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On Friday, delivery riders held another peaceful gathering outside the Sydney offices of the multinational gig platform HungryPanda. The organiser of the gathering, Zhuoying Wang, has worked for HungryPanda since 2019. She spoke about the retaliation she faced when she first started raising issues about fair pay and safety. Instead of sacking her, HungryPanda simply stopped giving her orders. After 100 hours logged in, she earned just $84—that's just 84 cents an hour for 100 hours. Since 4 February, she has received no orders at all. She can't earn any money, she can't pay her rent and her housemates are shouting her food.

Australia has a responsibility to make sure that migrants who are working here are entitled to fair pay and safety standards. The 'closing the loopholes' act that we passed this month will mean gig workers finally have a pathway towards minimum standards. Now, many gig platforms supported the reforms, but cowboys like HungryPanda didn't see the writing on the wall and have slashed their base rate for deliveries from $7 to $4, a decrease of 42 per cent. They have increased a bonus scheme where riders must complete a set number of orders in an unrealistic and unsafe time

They've introduced a bonus scheme where riders must complete a set number of orders in an unrealistic and unsafe time frame.

On Friday, Zhuoying said: 'Today is my 40th birthday, but it's not a beautiful birthday. I hope to take action to protect my legitimate rights.' Peter Dutton and the coalition stood with HungryPanda and voted against legislation to give minimum standards to riders like Zhuoying. But, while Zhuoying and her colleagues are standing up for their rights on the street, the Albanese Labor government is standing up for their rights in this place.