Workplace Relations
Transcript
Date: 26 February 2024
TRANSCRIPT
Ms WARE (Hughes): I rise to speak on the closing loopholes bill, which concerns a radical reordering of Australian workplace law. There are four areas particularly around this legislation that I'll address: the massive increase we see in this legislation around union interference in the workplace; the disbenefits of penalising casuals in the way that this law does; the way that this is going to impact on the gig economy and gig economy workers; and, particularly, the ways in which Labor has the right-to-disconnect laws completely wrong. These are four elements that all form part of the so-called closing loopholes bill.
This is a move back to a very centralised industrial relations system, the like of which we haven't seen since the 1970s and 1980s. To say this is closing loopholes is disingenuous. In this place we all want Australians to have safe, high wages. We want them to have sustainable jobs and to be rewarded for their hard work and experience. Primarily, with the closing loopholes legislation the government has failed to identify how this legislation will increase productivity within our country—how, in the long term, it will create more and more jobs for Australians. If those opposite cannot understand the importance of increasing productivity within our workplace relations system then perhaps they will accept the words of their former prime minister Bob Hawke: 'The only way in which we can lift real wages in the longer term is by lifting productivity. If we don't lift productivity, we can't afford increased real wages.' Again, from Bob Hawke, 'Productivity is the key to improving living standards.' Bob Hawke again, 'We have to look at productivity as the means by which we can secure better living standards for Australians into the future.' This closing loopholes legislation, though, is silent about productivity and how any part of Labor's policy is going to lead to further long-term jobs. It is an attack on the gig economy; on casual employment; on owners and drivers—those who want to be their own boss; and it gives unions unprecedented rights-of-entry into businesses.
Government members interjecting—
I can hear those opposite arguing, but when we look first of all at the union agenda—this was a welcome present for the unions—the unions were salivating over it. These measures are designed to grow not just union membership but union power and control of our economy, the same way that the union movement already controls this government.
Why bring in legislation that attacks gig workers, casual employees, and tradies—those who want to be their own boss? Why bring in legislation that attacks independent contractors? Because these are people who do not normally want to join unions, this is an attempt to bring them into the great union family. Instead, these IR changes should be focused on enterprise bargaining. They should be focused on a modern workplace system, not on punishing those who want to remain as casuals.
If we look first of all at what this Labor government are attempting to do to casuals, they have said, 'Oh, this is a casualisation of the workplace; this is very unfair to casuals.' No, there are many casuals who choose to work as casuals and should be able to have that right. They don't need to be told by the Labor Party or by unions that they can no longer be casuals. The definition of casual now extends to three pages—to work out what a casual employee is! The legislation now also gives unprecedented rights for people to go straight to Fair Work, straight to courts and to have an external party again interfering in the relationship between employers and employees, which, in 2024, should be a much more flexible system.
Then if we look at the right to disconnect: on the face of it, yes, of course employees need a reasonable time away from the workforce. However, modern technology has provided flexibility to the workplace. That flexibility needs to be two ways, so, again, we do not need the Labor government telling employees and telling employers when and where they can and cannot work.
Closing loopholes is bad law. It is about unnecessary interference in what was a flexible workplace relationship system. (Time expired)