Insecure Work; George Christensen; Penalty Rates

BELINDA HASSAN, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DAWSON: I’m Belinda Hassan, I’m the Labor Candidate for Dawson for the next federal election, and I’m really pleased to welcome to regional Queensland, particularly Mackay today - but he’s been travelling up and down the state - Brendan O’Connor, the Shadow Minister for Employment.

BRENDAN O’CONNOR, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Thanks very much. Thanks Belinda. And it’s great to be in Mackay. As Belinda indicated I’ve been travelling through Far North Queensland, regional Queensland with Bill Shorten and Jason Clare and other colleagues to really talk about a whole range of issues.

Firstly I just wanted to remind people that it is Labor that has invested $100 million in the second stage of the Mackay Ring Road, which will bring about 250 local jobs in the construction phase. It was Labor that started the first phase of the Ring Road, and indeed it is now under construction. But we need to do more, and that’s why Bill Shorten, Anthony Albanese, and Jason Clare in February with Belinda Hassan announced our commitment to that.

But when we’re talking about jobs, it’s not just about jobs - it’s about decent jobs. And one of the problems we’re facing in this country is too many people have insecure work. Whilst it’s very important to have a job, it’s also important to have a permanent full time job when you can get it. And, we want to make sure that people are not being exploited.

Our concern is too often - and it includes this seat of Dawson - too often in places like Mackay we have people working in casualised jobs, when they could be permanent. They are working in labour hire without any guaranteed hours, when they could be in a permanent job undertaking work with guaranteed hours.

Or, we are seeing the overuse or misuse of temporary work visas. So what we see too often - and nothing is happening out of Canberra or by the federal Liberal Government to stop it - is an overuse of 457 visas, and overuse of temporary work visas generally, and indeed a predominance of labour hire employment.

That’s why we are also announcing a website for workers to talk to us from this region and across Australia about their problems and their experiences in precarious work. That’s why we’ve actually set up a website www.stopunfairlabourhire.com.au and are inviting the working people of Mackay and across the region to let us know about the problems they are confronting.

Now, labour hire and casual employment are legitimate forms of employment, and so too are temporary work visas. But they should not be misused, and they shouldn’t be the mainstay of employment. The mainstay of employment should be a permanent fulltime job, and that’s what Australians expect to get when there are offers for employment.

Underemployment in Australia is at a record high of 1.1 million Australians that are looking for more work but cannot find it. We have 700,000 unemployed Australians. That’s 1.8 million Australians, with either no work, or with not enough work and still trying to find more employment.

So, whilst we are very happy to see the activities now - the construction of this road, and the jobs that come with it – in mining, in construction, and in other sectors of the economy, we do not want the first option to be a labour hire job. We want to see people getting gainfully and fully employed, because too many people do not have guaranteed hours.

When you have no guaranteed minimum hours, you are often too scared to raise health and safety issues. You are too scared of missing a day because you are sick, because you may not get work after that sick day.

That is not fair. It is not reasonable. For that reason, a Shorten Labor Government will introduce a National Licencing Scheme when it comes to labour hire, and we will redefine casualisation in this country. We will do away with sham contracting –that’s calling a worker a contractor when in fact they are a genuine employee. We have a whole array of policies that we want to bring in to make work more secure, and to give workers the opportunity of full-time work.

The final thing I wanted to talk about before I take your questions is penalty rates. At a time where wage growth is at its lowest in a generation – lowest in 20 years – it is not right that low-paid workers in retail and hospitality are having real cuts to their wages.

Now, the local Member here – the Member for Dawson, George Christensen, has made a lot about his support for workers and penalty rates. Let me tell you what he does when he goes to Canberra – he speaks to the media and the public here and says he supports penalty rates, then he goes to Canberra and he votes against his own Private Members Bill.

He did that as recently as last year. So he says one thing in Mackay, he does an absolutely different thing in Canberra.

I would rather George Christensen be honest and say that he wants to see penalty rates cut. Instead, he lies to his electorate, and he does the exact opposite to the commitments that he undertakes in this electorate.

Well, that won’t happen if Belinda Hassan is the member, because she will stand up for working people, and what she says here as a local champion she will do in Canberra.

This area needs someone who will stand up for working people, who will stand up to make sure that jobs are not just only consisting of labour hire and temporary work visas, someone who will actually commit to changing the law for the better, to re-balance workplaces so that working people get a fair share of the growth.

Productivity is up, profits are up, wages are flat lining, the federal government is doing nothing, the local member is pretending to do something but as always with that Member it is always talk - and worse, when he goes to Canberra he votes the exact opposite position to what he said he would do when speaking to the local media and to the community here.

I want to make that very clear - you won’t see that if Belinda is elected, and that’s of course why I’m here. We’ll be back many times before the next election, as will Bill Shorten and my shadow ministerial colleagues.

Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: So as recently as yesterday, our Labor State Government was touting their strong new laws against labour hire companies. What’s the difference here?

O’CONNOR: Well firstly, I want to congratulate the Queensland Government for introducing a licensing scheme for this state, and indeed there are other jurisdictions looking at that. The reason they’ve had to do that is because there’s a void. It’s a void left because the federal Government will not introduce a national licensing scheme.

Remember, many of the labour hire companies in this state are national labour hiring schemes, and we need to make sure, therefore, that we have a national scheme, that’s the first thing.

The second thing is whilst I do congratulate the Queensland Government for filling the void left by the Turnbull Liberal/National Government, the fact is it is only federally that we can redefine “casual”. It’s only federal government that can stop sham contracting, and it’s only a federal government that can stop the misuse of 457 visas.

So at a federal level we need to do more, and we can only do that with an election of a Shorten Labor Government.

Malcom Turnbull is out of touch quite frankly, that’s why you don’t see him in regional Queensland too often. He has no regard for the concerns of ordinary working people and their families. That is why there is no policy response to insecure work, to the overuse of labour hire, to the overuse of temporary work visas, and indeed the overuse of casualised work. That is why we need a government that is sensitive to the needs of working people in this region.

JOURNALIST: Do you say that insecure work has a negative impact on local economies?

O’CONNOR: It does over time, and it does in a number of ways. Firstly, just on a personal level, there are people that live in this community that are working casual for years. They can’t get home loans because banks say “What guarantee do you have that you’ve got a job next week let alone next month?”. They can’t even get car loans.

So, on a personal level, people who work indefinitely, year in year out as a casual employee or a labour hire employee without guaranteed hours are of course very vulnerable. That makes their families vulnerable, and if their families are vulnerable that makes the community vulnerable.

Now, there’s no problems with those forms of employment - we need a combination of work, yes you know, casual employment makes up the labour market - but what’s happening over time, is too often the jobs that were once permanent are becoming casualised, and only through the intervention of a federal Government can we fix that so that people get decent jobs.

I think that there is a real problem. The other problem too, on penalty rates, is that it affects the local economy. If we give money to big retailers instead of workers in the form of cuts to penalty rates, the shareholders who don’t live in this region take the money. If you actually employ and pay retail and hospitality workers who live here, they spend their wages in their community.

So when you cut penalty rates, you take capital, you take money out of the region, and it’s more pronounced in regions than even in big cities. Again, cutting penalty rates is bad for the workers, and it’s bad for the consumption of goods and services, therefore bad for the local economy.

That’s why Bill Shorten has introduced a Private Members Bill to stop the cuts.

JOURNALIST: Just going on this week there’s been a big advertising push by the unions against casualisation, and that sort of thing. Is this a co-ordinated strike?

O’CONNOR: Can I say firstly, before the last election, as Labor leader, Bill Shorten made a commitment to redefine “casual”. Before the last election, we talked about licensing labour hire, so well before the campaigns by the unions - or for that matter anyone else - federal Labor had responded to the problems in the labour market.

But, we are looking to do more. We are looking to do more to ensure that there are not people placed on independent contracting arrangements when they are employees. All that does is shift workers compensation costs and other costs to the worker.

So, there are more things to do, but you know the union movements got their campaign, that’s up to them. That’s their decision, but as I say, before their campaigning, we were out there before the 2016 election campaigning on these issues, and we will not stop campaigning until we’re elected, and have introduce laws that are fair for working people.

Thanks very much.