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Thousands of Miners Underpaid for Years

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During the June Estimates sessions, I exposed a regulator unwilling to confront the obvious – thousands of coal miners have been underpaid for years while the Fair Work Ombudsman hides behind outdated enterprise agreements and technical excuses.

Miners provided evidence and the regulator ignored it. Awards required permanency and enterprise agreements undermined it. Australia’s largest wage-theft scandal, affecting an estimated 5,000 workers, continues because no one in authority will confront it.

This session laid bare a system that has failed miners, failed the award, and failed it’s statutory duty to uphold a fair minimum safety net.

If the system won’t protect workers, someone has to call it out.

One Nation will always call it out.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing again, Ms Booth.  

Ms Booth: Thank you, Senator Roberts.  

Senator ROBERTS: Would you agree, as a matter of principle and community expectation, that no worker in Australia should be paid less than that required under a relevant award that applies to the worker?  

Ms Booth: What I would say is that all workers in Australia should be paid their legal entitlements.  

Senator ROBERTS: Mr Furlong had no trouble in confirming what I just said—twice. Are you familiar, Ms Booth, with the 2016 case where the Fair Work Commission found that an enterprise agreement between the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association and Coles was invalid because the enterprise agreement paid below the award?  

Ms Booth: I’m not personally familiar with that case, but we can take questions on notice about it and its relevance to the FWO activities, if you wish.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Would you agree that this ruling of the SDA sets a clear legal precedent that any enterprise agreement that pays below the award, even when the Fair Work Commission endorses such an enterprise agreement, is invalid?  

Ms Booth: Since I’m not familiar with the case, I wouldn’t comment on it. Ms Volzke might be familiar with it and might be able to give you further insight.  

Ms Volzke: I think we’ve discussed at previous Senate estimates hearings that the Fair Work Commission applies the better off overall all test, or BOOT, in determining whether or not an agreement can be approved, and, so long as it passes that test, that agreement will be approved.  

Senator ROBERTS: I will ask it again, Ms Volzke. Would you agree that this ruling sets a clear precedent that any enterprise agreement that pays below the award, doesn’t meet the BOOT, even when the Fair Work Commission endorses it, is invalid?  

Ms Volzke: At previous estimates, we’ve also spoken about the mechanisms that might be available to an aggrieved party if they wish to seek to set aside an enterprise agreement, and that would usually be one of the parties that is a party to that agreement.  

Senator ROBERTS: I noticed that you didn’t agree or disagree. I’ve repeatedly raised with the Fair Work Ombudsman the situation of casually engaged coal workers subject to the black coal mining industry award being paid less than the casualised award rate when employed by labour hire companies utilising enterprise agreements. We’ve previously discussed that a quantity of cases with specific details have been referred to the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Ombudsman has investigated. Can you tell me how many individual investigations have been completed?  

Ms Booth: As you know, Senator Roberts, a number of investigations are underway. Mr Ronson is in charge of that, and we’ll ask Mr Ronson to come up and give you a report on our progress.  

Senator Watt: While Mr Ronson is coming up, Senator Roberts, you are absolutely right that you have raised these issues a number of times at estimates, and every time I have reminded you that the One Nation party voted against our same job, same pay laws, which were designed to fix this problem.  

Senator ROBERTS: Because those laws were designed to cover up the problem.  

Senator Watt: No, they weren’t.  

Senator ROBERTS: They were designed to cover up. We mentioned it at the time, in the Senate.  

Senator Watt: Can you point out to me the section of the act that covers up this?  

CHAIR: This is a debate at another time. Mr Ronson.  

Mr Ronson: What I can confirm is that, in our black coal mining investigation, we’re about two-thirds of the way through, so we’re in the home stretch. The figures I can give you are these. Since we commenced this activity, we’ve investigated 56 cases and we’ve finalised 35, and, since I last provided evidence to this committee, we have received six new cases. We finalised 18 cases since our last update. Importantly—and I think this is relevant to the particular cohort of workers you’ve been interested in—we’ve now issued preliminary finding letters to all the workers represented by the Independent Workers Union of Australia. They have all our preliminary findings, whereby they’ve been given an opportunity to review those letters and findings, and, if they have any additional or new evidence or they disagree or confirm the findings, they have an opportunity to make submissions to us, as do the other parties.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is that a secure mechanism?  

Mr Ronson: They’ve got an opportunity to say ‘you’ve got this right,’ or ‘you’ve got this wrong,’ or ‘we agree with you’ or ‘you’ve missed that.’ But these are at quite an advanced stage, and so we’re confident that, within the next month or two, we should have finalised nearly all investigations.  

Senator ROBERTS: What’s the total number of complaints you’ve received? The total number is still outstanding.  

Mr Ronson: There are 21 cases outstanding, but, since we began this discrete activity, it’s 56 investigations, and 35 finalised.  

Senator ROBERTS: Plus six new.  

Mr Ronson: Since I last gave evidence, there have been six new ones. But we haven’t had a new case since February.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’ve received feedback on a number of completed Fair Work Ombudsman investigations from coalminers that have been affected. The Fair Work Ombudsman seems to be consistent in saying, ‘As the Fair Work Ombudsman has determined that’—the named person—’terms and conditions are governed by’ the named labour higher enterprise agreement, ‘we do not consider that the black coal mining industry award 2010 applied to the person named.’  

Mr Ronson: Yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: And, ‘Consequently,’ the Fair Work Ombudsman says, the named persons’ ‘wages and entitlements during the relevant period should not be derived from the award,’ but rather the named labour hire enterprise agreement. In light of the rulings in relation to the SDA case of 2016 and the Fair Work Commission general manager, why does the Fair Work Ombudsman now take the view that paying a worker less than the award is justifiable if the worker is being paid under a certified EA? On what legal basis does the Fair Work Ombudsman justify this?  

Ms Booth: I think we’re going to hear from Ms Volzke again, and it will traverse the same topic, and that is the legal framework within which we operate, and our job is to assess whether or not that framework has been breached. Perhaps Ms Volzke will elaborate again for you.  

Ms Volzke: I can’t talk to all of those outcomes of those investigations, but, thematically, and with a lot of those historical complaints also, we took the approach of assessing the situation where the agreement might apply, which was our view, but also, in the event that the agreement didn’t apply, we also looked at the situation of whether the underlying award might be relevant. In that case, as we’ve spoken about in previous estimates hearings, the legal consequences can be unclear as to whether or not that particular employee might have received an underpayment under the award anyway. That’s because, as you know, the black coal mining award doesn’t provide for casual employees in operational roles.  

Senator ROBERTS: There are a number of things there that I’m going to come back to. In relation to the actual comparing of paid rates, one assessment by the Fair Work Ombudsman that I’ve seen compares full-time rates under the award with casual rates under the enterprise agreement. The data provided by the Fair Work Ombudsman quotes the following rates and labels: contract rate per hour, $46.50. What’s the contract rate per hour?  

Mr Ronson: In those findings, what that would mean is the payment that employee would have received, so this would be a contract rate under a common law contract of employment. In that situation, you’ve got your common law contract of employment, but then there are also minimum entitlements in this country, informed by either an award or an enterprise agreement. But that contract rate would have been the rate that employee received.  

Senator ROBERTS: Sure. Then there is the award minimum rate, $21.97—these are your classifications.  

Mr Ronson: Yes, that would have been either a relevant agreement rate—  

Senator ROBERTS: This is award minimum rate.  

Mr Ronson: Or an award rate, at the time. This could be back in 2017 or 2018. Some of these cases have gone back years.  

Senator ROBERTS: The enterprise bargaining agreement 2012 minimum rate is $23.10.  

Mr Ronson: Again, that would have been the lawful minimum entitlement at that time in that particular situation for that worker.  

Senator ROBERTS: These are your figures again: named enterprise bargaining agreement 2012, casual rate, $28.88.  

Mr Ronson: That’s right. What Ms Volzke has been explaining is that the peculiarity of this whole sector is that enterprise agreements provide for casual rates because it’s been approved by the Fair Work Commission, but the black coal award doesn’t provide for casual production employees. This is the whole peculiarity of this sector.  

Senator ROBERTS: So these quoted rates omit important information and should in fact read as follows, in our opinion, based on the rates easily accessible under the award. Your award minimum rate should be the award minimum rate without entitlements. It’s the same figure, $21.97.  

Mr Ronson: I’m just presuming that, in that particular case, because there’s no casual provision in the award, we’re at a loss. We can’t confect one. There is no such thing. This is the very odd nature. So we’re reliant upon that contractual rate that they received.  

Senator ROBERTS: So the award has a rate plus entitlements, and what you’re doing is forgetting the entitlements and just taking the rate, even though the casuals should be paid a loading for all of those entitlements.  

Mr Ronson: No, I would imagine that, in those cases, there would be an enterprise agreement that would be at play.  

Ms Volzke: Because the award provides for the full-time rate, but the casual rate isn’t derived from the award. It can be the from the agreement, but also, potentially, if there is no agreement, it may well be that those particular employees are actually award and agreement-free, which would mean they would be covered by the national minimum wage.  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s the first time I’ve heard that one.  

Mr Ronson: It’s case by case. There are 56 cases. There will be nuances and changes on each one, but typically, for the cohort that has the historical complaints, it’s pretty much the same. It’s the same issue that you’ve been advocating for, agitating for, for some time.  

Senator ROBERTS: So let me add another one: award, notional, casualised rate. That comes to $50.01. Remember that figure. Then, where you’ve got named EBA 2012, minimum rate, we’ve added ‘without entitlements.’ What you’re doing is taking a minimum rate, stripping away the entitlements, not even counting them, and you’re saying that’s the case because—what was it, Ms Volzke?  

Ms Volzke: If there is an enterprise agreement that has been approved by the Fair Work Commission, then that displaces anything that might have otherwise applied in the underlying award, and then the employment conditions are what’s in the agreement. If there is no underlying agreement, you cannot extrapolate the full-time provisions in the award to casuals because, as Mr Ronson has already said, in those production roles, there is no classification for casual employees.  

Senator ROBERTS: Are you telling me, Ms Volzke, that, if the minimum rate is the same in the award and the enterprise agreement, because there’s no casual, the casual worker misses out entirely on all the other entitlements? Isn’t that paying less than the enterprise agreement, by a long, long way?  

Ms Volzke: No. For an agreement to be approved by the Fair Work Commission, the Fair Work Commission must be satisfied that the agreement passes the BOOT, the better off overall test. That will obviously depend on the particular matter and agreement that’s before it. I am only talking at a high level. I won’t make any particular conclusions about specific case examples, but that is the general principle—and, where the agreement has been validly approved, the conditions of employment are derived therein.  

Mr Ronson: What Ms Volzke is saying is that, where the agreement is in play—and that’s mostly the cases that you’re aware of—the agreement knocks out the award; the agreement trumps, in terms of the industrial instrument that informs the rates. But what I can tell you is that—  

Senator ROBERTS: The enterprise agreement, even if it’s inferior to the award, trumps the award.  

Mr Ronson: If it’s a lawful agreement, it trumps, yes; it displaces the award.  

Senator ROBERTS: It can’t be lawful, but we’ll come back to that.  

Mr Ronson: Okay. What I can say is that this is one of the reasons we were very careful to set out our findings very carefully and provide the parties with opportunities to see whether we’ve got anything wrong—and I can confirm that we’ve received no significant evidence that will alter the findings that we’ve made. It might not be the outcome that the employee wants, but it is the application of the law.  

Senator ROBERTS: That is, the named casual worker should have been paid a minimum of $50.01 per hour for the period. On evidence in pay slips supplied to the Fair Work Ombudsman, the named worker was paid $39.55 per hour. That’s less than your contract rate.  

Mr Ronson: Correct, but—  

Senator ROBERTS: All entitlements wiped.  

Mr Ronson: I don’t have that case in front of me, but that case would have been based upon what is the minimum entitlement that applies to this worker in this period, at this time and at this site, and that’s how we would have done the calculations and worked out whether there was a financial injury.  

Senator ROBERTS: The named labour hire EBA rates that the Fair Work Ombudsman quotes omit requirements for entitlements and in this respect are arguably misleading as to the truth. The rate actually paid is less than the award, less than your contract rate and less than the award notional casualised rate. How could the Fair Work Ombudsman get such basic information so wrong?  

Mr Ronson: What I’m trying to say is: out of all the preliminary findings we’ve issued, we’ve had no evidence received in response from parties that would impact or alter our findings. It may not be the outcome that people want, but it is the correct application of the law, in our view.  

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, at the start of your questions, I asked each senator to keep their questions to 15 minutes. We’ve now gone over that time.  

Senator ROBERTS: Can I have one question, and then I’ll hand over the call.  

CHAIR: Yes, thank you.  

Senator ROBERTS: And then I’d like another block. The miner supplied the Fair Work Ombudsman with all his pay slips. What period did the Fair Work Ombudsman consider in assessing the worker’s complaint—one year or the whole period of underpayment?  

Mr Ronson: The whole period.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I’ll come back.

Trancript

Senator ROBERTS: I will return to my questioning. Ms Booth, I refer to the Fair Work Ombudsman’s decision in relation to the miner, appendix C in this case, clause 9, which says, ‘No time or wage records were available during the relevant period.’ From whom?  

Ms Booth: That would be a detail in relation to a particular investigation that I wouldn’t have visibility of. Mr Ronson, do you?  

Mr Ronson: I’m going to presume, but correct me if I’m wrong, that the case that you’ve got in front of you probably relates to the 14 cases represented by the Independent Workers’ Union of Australia. 10 of those cases remain ongoing, so preliminary findings have been issued. From what you have just put, it looks like that’s an attachment to the preliminary findings, which gives an opportunity for the worker and the employer to respond if there’s any contradiction. Your question was about time and wage records not being available. That would be from either party. I’m not sure what particular period or history this is, but it may be that there were no timely wage records available.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m advised that the miner supplied his pay-slips and the Fair Work Ombudsman had the miner’s total hours and pay and could calculate the overall hourly rate. So it’s not from the miner. 

Mr Ronson: Okay. If there’s a concern, this is the opportunity to put this evidence to us if there’s something that we’ve missed. This is why we put the preliminary findings out, just in case there’s a question mark over what our findings are. We try to do our investigations to the best of our ability, to be as thorough as we can using the powers we have, but, if we’ve missed something and the parties have evidence, please provide it to us. This is exactly why this process has been undertaken.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Ms Booth, were you previously a Fair Work Commission member?  

Ms Booth: Yes, I was, from 2012 to 2020.  

Senator ROBERTS: Did any of the enterprise agreement applications you approved as a member include an enterprise agreement covering casual coal miners?  

Ms Booth: Of course, I would be relying on memory. I don’t recall any. Indeed, throughout my time at the Fair Work Commission I spent a lot of time being the national practice leader of what’s called the Collaborative Approaches Program now, which took me out into the field, and I was relieved of the obligation to approve enterprise agreements quite early on in my time in the commission. I couldn’t tell you which year that was but, for a large part of my time in the commission, I was relieved, very kindly by the President, of that obligation. I don’t recall any black coal cases, but the Fair Work Commission website still has every single decision that I have ever made under my name, and it can be examined to see whether or not any of those enterprise agreements fell within my purview.  

Senator ROBERTS: Did you ever check the BOOT?  

Ms Booth: When I did approve enterprise agreements, yes. Indeed, in the early part of my time in the Fair Work Commission, a member was required to do that personally. Then, as I went on towards 2020, the administrative support was provided and a BOOT report was provided to each member from the administrative staff to aid our examination of an enterprise agreement.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I want to go to section 134(1) of the Fair Work Act, which provides, The Fair Work Commission must ensure that modern awards, together with the National Employment Standards, provide a fair and relevant minimum safety net of terms and conditions.’ The use of the term ‘must’ imposes, does it not, a mandatory legal obligation on the commission?  

Ms Booth: I’ll say two things about that. One might be asking Ms Volzke to comment on the provisions of the act. I’ve not got it in front of me. I will be careful not to provide evidence to the committee other than from my current role as the Fair Work Ombudsman. I was happy to answer your questions about the Fair Work Commission, but of course I no longer speak for the Fair Work Commission. What I would say about the modern award objective is that every member, myself included, would have given consideration to all the factors listed in section 134.  

Senator ROBERTS: Before you hand over to Ms Volzke, does the commission—because you’re investigating a commission decision, ultimately—have the liberty to bypass, dilute or ignore this statutory duty—’must … provide a fair and relevant minimum safety net of terms and conditions’.  

Ms Booth: The modern awards objective applies in certain circumstances, not every dispute and not every case, but, where it applies, it is my understanding that at the time I was a Fair Work Commission member I was obliged to weigh all the factors that were in the modern awards objective in any decision that I was making. I would refrain from saying anything more about what I did in those times, because my memory will be faulty and the Fair Work Commission is no longer my area of work.  

Senator ROBERTS: I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t referring to your time in the Fair Work Commission. I’m referring to the Fair Work Commission decisions in this case.  

Ms Booth: I think I’ve given you my answer.  

Senator ROBERTS: As I understand it, the Black Coal Mining Industry Award says that production workers must be permanent workers, permanent employees. How do you get over that condition in an enterprise agreement?  

Ms Volzke: I haven’t got the terms of the award in front of me, but it doesn’t provide for casual employment in those production roles. You will remember as well that, in Closing Loopholes, the same job, same pay audit provisions came in that ensured that labour hire workers—  

Senator ROBERTS: This happened well before that.  

Ms Volzke: Absolutely, but what I’m saying is that anomaly, in the way that you’ve described it, going forward has been closed. We’re talking about, in some circumstances, agreements that were approved many years ago. As the regulator, we must apply the law as it stands at the particular point in time, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. As we’ve spoken about previously as well, a number of these historical matters are outside our statutory time frame for being able to prosecute them, but we are doing our very best to investigate them irrespective of that. That’s what we’re undertaking to do. Mr Ronson has provided some details on that already, and we hope to have that wrapped up soon. I’m very satisfied that we’re doing the best that we can in the circumstances to apply the law to these particular cohorts of employees.  

Senator ROBERTS: I’m not. Whether it’s been legal, or negligence or deliberate, this is Australia’s largest wage theft scam, and it’s continuing—Australia’s largest wage theft. It’s widespread. We estimate that around 5,000 miners are still being screwed by this. Does that bother you?  

Ms Volzke: As I said, the closing loopholes legislation in 2023 closed that loophole. Going forward, that is what the law is now, but our statutory mandate is to apply the law as it applies at a particular point in time, and these are historical matters.  

Senator ROBERTS: Doesn’t the Fair Work Ombudsman’s decision endorse the breach of the Fair Work Act and what amounts to the Fair Work Commission’s endorsement of Australia’s largest wage theft due to collusions between union bosses and large global multinational employers, including an offshoot in Australia of the world’s largest labour hire firm, Recruit Holdings?  

Ms Volzke: As we’ve spoken about previously, if an agreement has been approved by the Fair Work Commission, then it is part of the legal framework that we must apply, and that is what we’ve done.  

CHAIR: Senator Roberts, as I indicated at the start of your block of questioning, as we have two senators seeking the call, we’re seeking to split the time, so that’s the conclusion of your block of questions.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thanks, Chair. 

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End Bracket Creep – the Stealth Tax!

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One Nation moved an amendment to a tax bill to end bracket creep, demonstrating our commitment to ending the Liberal-Labor stealth tax, who use inflation to push people into higher tax brackets.

The last time we moved to end bracket creep, both major parties and the Nationals claimed they were against it, yet they voted against our amendment. Why? Because they lie! They like bracket creep because it’s a stealth tax – a secret tax. Both depend on bracket creep to quietly take more money from workers.

One Nation wants to reform taxation and put more money in people’s pockets. At this election, vote One Nation #1

Transcript

Here we go again—bracket creep. Australians rightly complain that politicians from both major parties have no vision for our country’s future prosperity. It’s all just short-term budgets that never look beyond the next election. That’s why, tonight, One Nation is moving an amendment to the 2025 budget that would benefit our children’s children and everyone in Australia today. If successful, our amendment would remove the secret tax, the stealth tax, known as bracket creep. Bracket creep is where the government quietly takes more tax from Australians because of inflation. The government uses inflation to take more tax out of every Australian. This simple amendment to end bracket creep would save Australians tens of billions of dollars each year. It’s another One Nation plan to put more money back in your pocket. 

So let me explain. As inflation continues, wages increase to try and keep up. A salary might go up from $100,000 to $120,000, yet, because of inflation, you can still only buy the same things because prices have risen. Despite being able to only buy the same things, your tax bill goes up because, on paper, the salary has gone up and been pushed into a higher tax bracket with a higher rate of tax. Inflation pushes up the salary you need to survive every year, yet the tax thresholds stay in exactly the same place. As salaries increase, they enter a higher tax rate bracket. This is bracket creep. One Nation would end it. We would index the income tax thresholds to inflation so you do not enter a higher tax rate bracket, making sure Australians don’t pay a higher tax rate because of inflation. 

Tax reform is mentioned a lot in parliament. Here’s a genuine opportunity to do it. Australians are being squeezed from every angle. The current tax system is bleeding Australians dry while letting foreign multinational corporations rip off the country. Tonight, One Nation is proposing a policy that will tip the balance back towards helping Australians because we believe in putting more money back in Australians’ pockets. At the election, vote One Nation No. 1. 

How They Voted

The Liberals, Nationals and Labor claim to support tax bracket indexation, yet twice I have moved an amendment to introduce it, and both times they have voted it down. The major parties want to dishonestly continue their thieving stealth tax.

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Albanese Government’s Sham Celebration

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Unbelievable! The Albanese Labor government is celebrating a measly 0.8% wage increase for the quarter, while inflation has gone up by 1%. Do the math, and it’s clear—we’re all going backwards by 0.2%! 😡 Yet, the Treasurer and Prime Minister have the audacity to tell us to celebrate. Meanwhile, everyday Aussies are suffering through the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history. Our GDP is barely avoiding a recession, propped up only by a massive influx of one million new migrants in just two years. Let’s be real: we’re in the middle of the worst per capita recession since the Great Depression!

The Liberal-Labor Uniparty is shipping off our natural resources, obeying unelected foreign bodies like the WEF, and allowing predatory investment funds to own our critical industries. Additionally, they’ve also let our housing crisis spiral out of control by bringing in more people than we can house.

Only One Nation will put a stop to this madness and fight for the Australian people. It’s time to end these anti-Australian decisions that are dragging us backwards.

Transcript

Well, I couldn’t believe my ears last week. The Albanese Labor government burst out of the gates to tell Australians to celebrate and rejoice: wages had gone up 0.8 per cent for the quarter. The Treasurer and Prime Minister tell us: ‘Pop the champagne bottles! Just ignore the fact that inflation has gone up one per cent for the same quarter.’ That means everyone has gone backwards an average of 0.2 per cent. Can you believe the Treasurer and Prime Minister can bring themselves to front up to the cameras to address this parliament and put such a ridiculous spin on the latest round of bad news? How do they do it? How does the Labor Party keep telling Australians we’ve never had it better, while Australians struggle through the worst cost-of-living crisis in modern history? The GDP is treading water; it’s barely staying out of technical recession. How is it staying out? Thanks to one million fresh migrant arrivals in just two years, boosting official gross domestic product, GDP, to just barely over the recession threshold. 

Meanwhile, let’s look at how everyday Australians are faring. We’re in the middle of the worst per capita recession since the Great Depression. Australians have not gone backwards on average this badly since the 1930s—almost a century. What is the Liberal-Labor uniparty’s answer to this? The uniparty will continue to send our natural resources overseas for China to use in building solar panels that China sells back to us. The uniparty will continue to obey what unelected foreign organisations like the World Economic Forum say. The uniparty will keep letting foreign predatory investment funds like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, and banks like JP Morgan, own our critical industries and get away with economic murder. The uniparty will continue to let too many new arrivals into our country before we have the necessary housing and services, prolonging the housing crisis that the uniparty created over recent decades. The housing crisis did not occur overnight; it’s been cultivated. Only One Nation will stop this madness and put an end to anti-Australia decisions that are sending our people backwards. (Time expired) 

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One Nation’s Policies Can Fix Australia’s Inflation Crisis

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Australia’s real wages have collapsed to levels not seen since before 2010, wiping out 15 years of hard-earned pay rises. Both the Labor and Liberal governments have fueled this crisis.

While the government wastes billions on net zero projects and supports foreign companies, inflation continues to rise.

The solutions are simple: cut subsidies to foreign-owned, net zero parasites and use Australia’s oil, coal and gas for our benefit. Let farmers freely use their land to grow affordable food and adopt One Nation’s housing policies to get Australians into houses. Only One Nation is putting Australia first and has the policies to bring inflation under control.

It’s time for the government to stop looking after their mates and start putting the country first.

Transcript

If you feel like you’re going backwards, you are. Inflation is running out of control and way too high. Wages haven’t caught up to cost-of-living increases. When adjusted for inflation, Australia’s real wages have collapsed to a level not seen since before 2010. That means that government caused inflation has wiped out 15 years of hard-earned pay rises. The government has its foot on the accelerator now, making it worse, while the Reserve Bank is stomping on the brake for mortgage holders. This coalition motion claims $315 billion of Labor government spending is unhelpful in the inflation fight. The coalition’s $508 billion spend on its mismanaged COVID response was just as unhelpful. That created the inflation that Labor is now prolonging. The Liberal-Labor uniparty cannot fix the cost-of-living crisis when both are committed to net zero insanity, making inflation worse. While government subsidises foreign-owned, Chinese-dominated companies to put up environment-destroying wind and solar complexes, inflation will continue. While farmers are restricted from using their land to grow fresh food, inflation will continue. While government crushes small business and lets multinational companies get away with economic murder, inflation will continue. While 40 per cent of the cost of building a new house continues to be taxed, inflation will continue. 

The solutions are simple: cut the subsidies to the foreign-owned, net zero parasites, and use Australia’s abundant oil, coal and gas reserves right here for the benefit of the people in this country. Let farmers be free to use their land to cheaply grow the world’s best food so Australians can afford to eat. Finally, adopt One Nation’s housing policies that will get Australians into affordable houses. Only One Nation policies will put Australia first and bring inflation under control. To the Labor-Liberal uniparty, stop looking after your mates and start putting the country first. Adopt One Nation’s policies on housing and immigration. 

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Treasurer’s “Jimbonomics” Australia’s road to ruin

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, with no real-world business experience, no firsthand knowledge of free markets and no life outside the machine of politics has decided to tear down Australia’s economic system and rebuild it—hammer in one hand and sickle in the other.

The Treasurers, “Jimbonomics”, form of command and control will only benefit Labor’s billionaire masters.

Transcript

I speak as a servant to the many different people who make up our amazing one Queensland community. I have not yet had a chance to make fun of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’s ode to soviet glory titled ‘Capitalism after the crisis’, so let me start there. A Treasurer with no real-world business experience, no firsthand knowledge of free markets and no life outside the machine of politics has decided to tear down Australia’s economic system and rebuild it—hammer in one hand and sickle in the other. Reinventing capitalism is not visionary, as Jim Chalmers hopes; it’s a cliche.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Cox):

Senator Roberts, can I just remind you to address people in the other place by their correct titles.

Senator ROBERTS: Mr Jim Chalmers?

Senator ROBERTS: Worse, it confuses political theory with economics. The Treasurer has studied only one of those, and it’s not economics. Mr Jim Chalmers has studied political science and now sees every problem as a political one. The Treasurer knows nothing about economics and clearly dismisses the need for it. How ironic that Mr Jim Chalmers’s now legendary article opens with a quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitis, when he says:

No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.

What? It’s not without merit that Heraclitis is known as the ‘obscure philosopher’. This nonsense may make the Treasurer sound smart at a dinner party for pseudo-intellectual lefties, yet, to everyday Australians struggling with the rising cost of living, falling real wages and a housing shortage, it’s nothing more than intellectual masturbation.

When you hear ‘command capitalism’ from the Treasurer, what he’s really saying to the Australian people is this: ‘I don’t trust you. I don’t respect your choices. I don’t recognise your freedom. Everything you have belongs to the state, and you will do as we command.’

Commentators refer to this fantasy as Jimbonomics. That’s their view. In reality, it’s about threat, force and regulation designed to herd businesses into supporting fringe activism that rewards the elites at the expense of everyday people. It’s about control over ‘we the people’. Rather than the state owning everything directly, all the wealth in the Treasurer’s economy will be owned by the billionaires that own the UN and the World Economic Forum.

Already, woke politics has engineered a rapid descent of employee privacy, with governments ranking businesses based upon the race, religion, sexual preference, gender and disability of their staff. Human beings have become commodities in the implementation phase of the great reset, the new world order.

The recent Workplace Health and Safety Amendment Bill 2023 from this government actually requires an employer to know the vaccine status of their employees and to bar those people from the workplace if they are not vaccinated—inhuman. Pfizer says, ‘Cheers for that bill. Thank you.’ Treasurer Chalmers has lit a fire at the heart of parliament that seeks to destroy everything good and prosperous that everyday Australians, across the 235 years of Western settlement in Australia, have built.

As many have said in criticism of the Treasurer’s treatise on communism, there can be no democracy without capitalism, and there is no capitalism without the free market. It’s time we started asking if Labor is planning on reimagining democracy itself. Is it? The Albanese government have introduced legislation that clearly shows this is their intention, so at least the Treasurer has been honest about his intentions.

Listen to this. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Energy Price Relief Plan) Bill 2022 was nationalising the gas industry. The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023 represents the government distorting the free market, taking it upon themselves to direct investment in manufacturing, using government money, and to stop key investments in our future.

The Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting) Amendment Bill 2022 imposes egregious controls on industry, with ministerial direction to provide all of the details in the future—unfettered power. I’m sick of these bills that are all shopping bag and no shopping.

It’s not the purpose of the state to give the government of the day a bill with nothing actually in it so the government can fill in all the important bits later, as it wants. Shame on the Greens and the teals for going along with this insult to the Westminster system of government. It must now be clear that George Carlin was absolutely correct: it’s a club, and everyday people, everyday Australians, are not in it. Australians have never wanted the economy to be subservient to its political leaders. We have never wanted that.

Command capitalism is anticompetitive. It allows the Albanese government to decide which Australian businesses get to succeed and which fail. Why does Mr Jim Chalmers feel the need to reinvent capitalism? Why does he feel that he is the first Treasurer in Australian history that must take this step off the cliff into the abyss? I’ll tell you why. The free market doesn’t like what Labor is selling. The Australian people do not want to spend their money on inferior eco-products and self-serving CEOs who, so long as they achieve their carbon dioxide footprint, would happily see Australian families starve or freeze.

Net zero policies are all fun and games until the lights go off and the bugs are served cold because, well, gas is now selfish and the power has gone off again—so cold it is. Why is it that the only environments the Labor Party doesn’t want to help are the investment environment and the human environment? If the market doesn’t want Labor’s globalist vision, then the Prime Minister and his Treasurer must accept that. They have no right, and they were not voted into power, to dismantle capitalism, reimagine it or duct tape it to a chair in the basement.

It took Mr Jim Chalmers 6,000 words to explain that values based capitalism means, ‘You will do as we say.’ The Soviet Union fell 30 years ago, but Treasurer Chalmers is doing his best to drape its banners all over our parliament. Treasurer, give it up. Russia has. ‘Jimbonomics’, as some call it, will harm small and medium-sized businesses and transfer wealth to the people at the big end of town whose market power allows them to comply with the Treasurer’s demands. To comply is easy for them: pass the cost on to the consumer. That’s all. From the perspective of everyday Australians, green is the new red. From the perspective of the billionaires who shadow-wrote the Treasurer’s opus, green is the new gold.

The only part of the Treasurer’s opus that was not lifted from the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset was the part that was deliberately left out: you will own nothing and you will be happy. Who will own what everyday Australians are no longer allowed to own—the houses, cars, furniture and electronics? Why, it’ll be the predatory billionaires for whom Jim Chalmers is just a mouthpiece.

Commanding the market during COVID has wrecked the market. Wages are falling, inflation is out of control and economic activity is down. Exports have grown in countries that ran their economies better than we did. They have the demand and the economic strength. Now Jim Chalmers wants to use more command economics to get us out of the hole in which command economics has buried us.

Australia will not survive a second round of abuse from a treasurer who is handsy with other people’s money. Markets do not belong to Mr Jim Chalmers. They do not belong to the Labor Party. Markets belong to the people and their private businesses. They belong to Australians. The big business investors in whose pockets the Treasurer so often resides, bankers in particular, would like nothing more than to kill off their market competition and to bury the small and medium-sized businesses in a new mountain of controls and regulatory bondage.

Their deaths will be celebrated in the name of saving the planet. Make no mistake: destroying small and medium-sized businesses is the goal, not the unintended consequence, of green politics.

For Labor, dealing with a handful of powerful CEOs is easier than dealing with 10 million small directors. But those directors are the ones keeping Australia back from the brink of ruin. The safest economies in history have been the nimble free markets. It has been repeatedly proven. They adapt to disasters, bounce back after injury and seek out the best solutions for the future. Free markets are far smarter than Jim Chalmers.

The beauty of free markets is that they are smarter by far than any individual or group, and sensible, honest people know this. Competent people know this. Jim Chalmers and his Soviet counterparts are too arrogant, or maybe too fearful, to understand that basic truth. The secret to being a truly great treasurer is to step back, relinquish power, cut regulation, lower taxes and let Australians do what Australians do best: lift themselves up through their own hard work and enterprise.

Businesses are not ideological vessels to carry Labor’s election slogans, tied to the Greens and the teals. Businesses are not fodder in the insatiable thirst for more money, more power and more influence from the billionaires at the World Economic Forum. It is about control.

Shame on the Treasurer for reaching well beyond his mandate. Put your greedy paws back in your pockets. It’s time for the Treasurer and the Prime Minister to tell their billionaire masters, ‘No.’ We have one flag, we are one community and we are one nation, founded as a penal colony.

I’ll be damned if the One Nation party will let you take us back there again.

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Media Release: One Nation advances equal pay for equal work

One Nation’s Equal Pay for Equal Work Bill 2022 ensures the rate of pay for casual labour hire workers are the same as or better than full time workers doing the same job.

Senator Roberts said, “The exploitation of casual workers stops here and now, and my Equal Pay for Equal Work Bill will ensure casual workers are remunerated fairly.

“Companies need to re-invest in traineeships and apprenticeships for their future labour requirements, rather than contracting casual positions on lower wages.”

My Bill applies to the Black Coal Mining Industry Award 2010 and the Aircraft Cabin Crew Award 2020, both of which have a history of claiming flexibility requirements but undercutting wages.

This Bill will include the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation Enterprise Award 2016, the Fire Fighting Industry Award 2020, the Maritime Offshore Oil and Gas Award 2020 and the Seagoing Industry Award 2020.

Senator Roberts said, “While some of these industries do not have a history of casualisation, they all inherently need to maintain high and consistent standards of safety using a stable workforce.”

One Nation accepts the need for casuals to cover sudden spikes in labour demand.

Senator Roberts said, “We need to make sure casual workers are just that, a short-term requirement to address business demands, and that employers in these specific industries shift their perspective to an investment in longer term workforce planning and permanent employment.

“The overuse of casualisation has driven down wages, making it a struggle for a sole breadwinner to provide for their families.”

One Nation has achieved many positive changes for casual workers in the black coal mining industry, along with introducing casual to permanent conversion rights and protecting small business from red tape when implementing casual conversion. “This Bill is award-based and allows for wage negotiation between the employee, union and employer, which is an investment in the employer and employee relationship,” added Senator Roberts.

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Labor has no solutions for IR problems

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Labor has no claim to the high ground on industrial relations, they have abandoned the working class. A graph of our median and average wages over time is untroubled by changes in government.

Liberal, National, Labor or Greens, it makes no difference; workers just keep going backwards. Only One Nation has a vision for the future that returns our productive capacity, manufacturing and better wages for Australians.

Transcript

This motion is one of the least self-aware that I’ve seen out of the Labor Party. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that the median wage has not increased in real terms over the last 30 years after adjusting for dramatic increases in the cost of housing, health care and education, yet Australia’s gross domestic product per capita has increased over that period from $13,600 to $65,400 in real terms—as are all my figures today. Gross domestic product is up by a factor of five, and the wages of everyday Australians have not increased. Where’s the money gone? Average wages for Australians at the upper end of the scale have seen an increase of 50 per cent, and at the very top end the increase is over 100 per cent. A graph of our median and average wages over time is untroubled by changes in government. Liberal, National, Labor or Greens, it makes no difference; workers just keep going backwards.

Wages as a share of GDP have fallen from $116 billion to $96 billion over 30 years. The share of our gross domestic product being paid to Australian workers is at an all-time low yet corporate profits have grown from $20 billion to $120 billion—six times. Globalist economics has crushed the wages of everyday Australians and deposited the spoils from an expanding economy into the pockets of the big end of town in salaries, bonuses and dividends. Globalist free trade agreements have seen more than one million high-paid, skilled manufacturing and heavy industry jobs moved overseas. Labor is a big fan of globalism—voting in favour of every one of these free trade agreements.

Recently the Senate voted for a UN funding bill to direct money into funding economic development in countries with which we have a free trade agreement. This facilitates increases in their productive capacity to take yet more Australian jobs. One Nation was the only party to oppose the funding bill. The Labor Party voted in favour—in favour of losing yet more jobs overseas.

COVID restrictions have had a role to play as well. The government’s COVID restrictions measures have moved consumer spending away from small businesses who employ everyday Australians to corporate retailers who pay minimum wage. Online growth has gone to Amazon, owned by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos. Social media are calling the COVID restrictions on businesses ‘a war on capitalism’; it is no such thing. In corporate Australia, the biggest crony capitalists have record sales, record profits and have paid higher dividends and bonuses. As a result of government coronavirus restrictions and measures, the world’s 400 richest people have increased their wealth by $1 trillion. Much of this new wealth is money that was once spent in local communities—in hardware stores, community supermarkets, butchers and grocers. This was money that held up real wages paid by local businesses to their loyal staff. Now those businesses have been forced to close or to sack workers. So the real outcome from coronavirus measures has been the largest transference of wealth from small businesses to foreign-owned or controlled corporations in Australian history. We expect this sort of thing from the globalist Liberal Party and their sell-out sidekicks—the Nationals—yet this has been brought to you by Labor in Queensland, Labor in Western Australia and Labor in Victoria. Almost every government measure during the COVID period has been waved through the Senate by the Labor Party, working in conjunction with the Liberals and Nationals.

Labor don’t get to complain now; they should have seen this coming. The only thing that was not in this profligate spending was a permanent increase in JobSeeker. The constant pressure from One Nation in this place directly with the government across many years has today had a result. One Nation will continue to stand up for everyday Australians. The destruction of wages and entitlements for Australian workers has many other causes. At the heart of the problem is supply and demand for workers. At the same time that Australia is sending jobs overseas, we are importing workers. Over the last 30 years, Australia has added 10 million new Australians. While many of these do not go into the productive economy, the bottom line is simple: we are importing workers for jobs that have already been exported to lower-cost destinations, especially China. There are more workers than jobs and that can only have the effect of reducing wages. Labor defend Australia’s high immigration rate and suggest One Nation are racists for wanting a reduction in the rate of arrivals. The use of the word ‘racist’ means they have no argument to counter us. All One Nation are doing is standing up for everyday Australians who will never get a decent pay rise a as long as the government keeps bringing in more new arrivals than there are jobs. The Rudd Labor government and the Gillard-Rudd Labor-Greens government increased permanent migration from 160,000 in 2007 to 205,000 in 2013. Labor cannot pretend to care about workers when it was Labor that initiated the largest spike in arrivals in the last 30 years.

The other issue around stagnation in real wages is foreign temporary workers. The Senate inquiry into temporary work visas found temporary migrant workers experienced widespread wage theft and gross violations of Australian minimum work standards including: failure to pay minimum wages, long work hours and lack of health and safety training leading to workplace injuries. Temporary work visa holders are being exploited to drive down wages and conditions. Indeed Bill Shorten, as minister, set the record for temporary work visas in this country, a record that Labor still holds. I don’t hear Labor complaining about this.

This may be because their beloved free trade agreements facilitate foreign workers. The Indonesian free trade agreement section 12.9 removes labour market testing and allows additional contract workers across 400 skilled occupation. It allows for 4,000 temporary working holiday-maker visas per year, and these workers are highly exploited because they’ll be deported if they lose their jobs. Wage theft is not entirely restricted to vulnerable foreign workers, although it does account for most of the cases. The problem of falling real wages, job insecurity and wage theft, which Senator Walsh mentions in this motion, results from Labor Party policies. One Nation is accused of wanting to wind the clock back. Well, on this issue we do want to wind the clock back, back to when workers got a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. We need to start putting Australia and Australians first, back to when workers settled here, became Australian citizens and contributed to the future of our marvellous country.

Full Motion: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Hansard/Hansard_Display?bid=chamber/hansards/c18a4b03-69cc-4413-9438-08e33693f884/&sid=0102

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Further information on One Nation’s Enterprise Agreement Vote

Three examples of Labor MP’s gutting jobs and workers and an expression of appreciation for three Labor MP’s who approach us face-to-face and honestly deal with issues.
The Labor party as a whole no longer protects workers.

Today’s Labor party savages workers and families. Labor has lost relevance and instead of caring about workers and being honest many Labor MPs tell lies and omit facts.

What works with us and what we like is for MP’s to approach us openly, bring data and share it freely to back up their request, and above all, to be honest.

Transcript

Following last week’s parliamentary sessions in Canberra here’s a longer video with more facts on policies hurting workers and a compliment to one New South Wales senator who approached us openly and respectfully on an issue.

Let’s set the record straight on a recent change to federal regulations, to allow employers and employees to quickly amend an existing Enterprise Agreement to deal with the COVID-19 crisis and keep their business going and employing people.

For businesses that are struggling to survive due to COVID-19, this allows employers to ask employees to vote on changes to an existing EA more quickly, in as short as 24 hours, rather than the normal 7 days. Unprecedented times call for flexibility for employers and employees.

We agree that some businesses need this and workers in those businesses understand. It was One Nation though that negotiated with the government to add the 12-month sunset clause, so that if employees agree to amend their EA for COVID, all pay and conditions would return after 12 months.

That’s fair. Typically, Labour then spread the lie that these temporary changes with a shorter voting period would be permanent, when they’re not. Remember, the regulation does not force you to agree. If you lack adequate time to vote on it, you can vote no.

So, to Labor’s Tony Burke and Joel Fitzgibbon, you have been caught lying to the workers you claim to represent. Labour seems to hate that it was One Nation who negotiated with the government to improve the bill, and made amendments to protect workers and workers’ rights.

And I put on notice any employer that thinks of using COVID-19 to screw workers by taking advantage of new regulations when COVID-19 restrictions have not affected them. In places like mines with 24 hour shift-work, employers would be crazy to give only one day to vote because that would force some workers to come in to vote on their day off or after a long shift on night work.

And workers who are annoyed would likely vote against the amended EA anyway. Anyway, as far as we know from listening to miners, COVID-19 is not affecting most mines’ operations. Remember, the new regulation does not apply to voting on a new EA, only to changes to an existing EA.

The regulation that is part of the COVID-19 response package only improves the flexibility for those businesses where employers and employees need a quick change to deal with COVID. We all know that life is about making choices, especially in politics where we face so many different people’s competing needs. Quite often, we have to choose between two difficult choices.

On one hand the viability of employers to protect jobs, and on the other hand protecting workers and worker’s rights. To make sure workers are protected while giving employees and employers greater flexibility to negotiate changes quickly to keep people in work, One Nation added the 12 month sunset clause.

The government agreed and will change the regulation. That means that after 12 months an EA with COVID changes returns back to the original conditions. This was done by One Nation to protect workers from employers in case those employers later tried to make COVID changes continue forever.

We’re in unprecedented times, yet we will not let this pandemic be used as an excuse to drag this out any longer than it should. One Nation identifies real issues and protects workers’ rights. Let’s get the background facts on what happened.

Labour has been sidelined with two things, the focus on the government during COVID and a lame federal leader in Anthony Albanese after a distrusted leader in Bill Shorten. A few weeks ago a journalist asked me for comment on the possibility of voting on Labor’s disallowance of the regulation.

What disallowance? That was news to us. When there is a real issue though, Labour contacts us to get our support. Union delegates contact us. Yet we heard nothing from unions or Labour. It was not a serious issue and Labour did not make an argument for it.

Later, when we saw the disallowance motion on the senate agenda we contacted Labour and we contacted union delegates. Union delegates said they had no issue. We reviewed the regulation and realised that some employees and employers would want to negotiate changes quickly to keep people in work under COVID isolation rules, others would make no changes and others still would make minor changes slowly to remain viable.

The key though, is that we saw a loophole that needed to be closed. So we approached the government and explained it. The government agreed with us and is amending the regulation to protect workers’ rights. That change that One Nation senators proposed was to put a sunset clause on any changes to protect workers after the COVID crisis ends. To protect workers.

Now, desperate Labour MPs, like Tony Burke, Joel Fitzgibbon, Katy Gallagher, falsely and needlessly mislead and worry honest workers in an attempt for political gain. We though in One Nation got to the core issue and fixed it to protect workers’ rights.

By the way, let me remind you that Tony Burke, when he was Labor’s Environment Minister, pushed anti-coal measures that are still hurting our coal industry and therefore hurting coal miners. And raising electricity prices that are still hurting all workers and all family householders, and exporting manufacturing and processing jobs to China.

So let me remind everyone, that Tony Burke enacted drastic UN regulations that gutted our fishing industry and gave power over our country to faceless unelected UN bureaucrats. Now, he dares misleads people about the disallowance motion and forgets to tell people that One Nation negotiated changes in the regulations to ensure workers rights are protected.

As for Joel Fitzgibbon, after he was nearly tipped out as the rep for Hunter, last federal election, he started to talk more about coal. Yet his words remain hollow, because his Labour party bosses continue anti-coal policies.

Where the old and real Labour party protected miners and workers, today’s Labour party protects the UN and pushes UN policies. These days Labour does not care about Australian workers. Labour hurts Australian workers.

Labour tells lies to Australian workers and Labour hurts our democracy. Another example of Labour mismanagement of workers is immigration policies, immigration numbers. After One Nation alone for years called to cut immigration numbers, recently Labour senator Kristina Keneally wrote an article calling for immigration to not be the same after COVID as before.

Yet she and others had been viciously and falsely labelling our demands for immigration cuts as racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic. The reality is that we could see that huge immigration numbers suppress wages, raise house prices, put pressure on infrastructure like roads, hospitals, schools and drive casualization of the workforce.

So last week in the senate I moved a matter of public importance motion that became a test of her commitment to her new words. You know what? She hid the whole day until after my motion had been debated.

Labour MPs refused to back her call for lower immigration numbers. Remember, the largest intake of temporary visa workers in any year occurred when Bill Shorten was minister for workplace relations under the Gillard Green’s government and authorised them.

Labour hurts Australian workers. Labour does not care about Australian workers. Labour tells lies. I take this opportunity though to express appreciation to Senator Tony Sheldon from New South Wales who approached us about getting Dnata employees in airline catering to be put on the government’s JobKeeper programme despite the government saying that welfare would not go to 100% foreign owned companies.

Dnata is 100% owned by a Middle Eastern country. We asked Senator Sheldon for data and gave us some. We asked the government for data and got plenty.

We then realised that these days domestic flights usually provide minimal food such as packaged peanuts, no big meals International flights though cater for solid meals yet most of those flights won’t start again until early next year, maybe mid next year and JobKeeper ends in late September this year. Plus, JobKeeper payments are taxed.

JobSeeker though is open to Australian workers, are not taxed and often come with additional payments such as family allowance and rental assistance. We checked the data and JobSeeker payments are comparable with JobKeeper after tax is removed from JobKeeper.

More importantly, JobSeeker continues beyond September and into next year so Dnata workers will be better protected on JobSeeker. We made a decision on the facts we gathered and in our view it is better to put the situation openly to Dnata people, many of whom will not have a job after September and need to sign up for JobSeeker as soon as possible.

Now we appreciate Tony Sheldon’s care and his open approach to us to consider his motion, we trust Tony because he’s honest. He’s a former TWU union delegate, like Senators Glenn Sterle and Alex Gallacher, who we find are excellent to deal with in the senate and are knowledgeable and caring.

Like Pauline and me, One Nation values honesty.

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Enterprise Agreement Vote Explained

Last week in the Senate Pauline and I negotiated with the Government to change new COVID regulations to protect workers rights .Yet when some MPs feel like they are losing relevance, they panic and spread misinformation to score cheap political points. These MP’s show they do not care about workers and are not honest. See for yourself. One Nation will always protect workers and workers’ rights

Transcript

Let’s set the record straight on a recent change to federal regulations to allow employers and employees to quickly amend an existing Enterprise Agreement to deal with the COVID-19 crisis and keep their business going and employing people. For businesses that are struggling to survive due to COVID-19, this allows employers to ask employees to vote on changes to an existing EA more quickly, in as short as 24 hours, rather than the normal seven days.

Unprecedented times call for flexibility for employers and employees. Now, we agree that some businesses need this and workers in those businesses understand. It was One Nation, though, that negotiated with the government to add the 12-month sunset clause, so that if employees agreed to amend their EA for COVID, all pay and conditions would return after 12 months. That’s fair.

Typically, Labor then spread the lie that these temporary changes with a shorter voting period would be permanent, when they’re not. Remember, the regulation does not force you to agree. If you lack adequate time to vote on it, you can vote no. So, to Labor’s Tony Burke and Joel Fitzgibbon, you have been caught lying to the workers you claim to represent.

Labor seems to hate that it was One Nation who negotiated with the government to improve the bill and made amendments to protect workers and workers’ rights. And I put on notice any employer that thinks of using COVID-19 to screw workers by taking advantage of new regulations when COVID-19 restrictions have not affected them.

In places like mines with 24-hour shift work, employers would be crazy to give only one day to vote because that would force some workers to come in to vote on their day off or after a long shift or night work. And workers who are annoyed would likely vote against the amended EA anyway. Anyway, as far as we know from listening to miners, COVID-19 is not affecting most mines’ operations.

Remember, the new regulation does not apply to voting on a new EA, only to changes to an existing EA. The regulation that is part of the COVID-19 response package only improves the flexibility for those businesses where employers and employees need a quick change to deal with COVID. We all know that life is about making choices, especially in politics where we face so many different people’s competing needs.

Quite often we have to choose between two difficult choices. On the one hand, the viability of employers to protect jobs, and on the other hand, protecting workers and workers’ rights. To make sure workers are protected, while giving employees and employers greater flexibility to negotiate changes quickly to keep people in work, One Nation added the 12-month sunset clause.

The government agreed and will change the regulation. That means that after 12 months, an EA with COVID changes returns back to the original conditions. This was done by One Nation to protect workers from employers, in case those employers later tried to make COVID changes continue forever. We are in unprecedented times, yet we will not let this pandemic be used as an excuse to drag this out any longer than it should.

One Nation identifies real issues and protects workers’ rights.

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