Page 1122 - Week 04 - Thursday, 21 May 2020
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place in order to protect their rights and health and safety in the workplace. This includes young workers, older workers, migrant workers, workers for whom English is not their first language, and workers with a disability.
Reports and inquiries such as the Inquiry into the practices of the labour hire industry in Queensland, the Victorian inquiry into the labour hire industry and insecure work and the commonwealth’s migrant workers taskforce inquiry have found that migrant workers continue to be one of the most vulnerable worker cohorts and are consistently over-represented in fair work disputes.
In 2017-18 migrant workers accounted for 20 per cent of all disputes completed by the Fair Work Ombudsman despite making up only six per cent—that is correct: six per cent—of the Australian workforce. This is because migrant workers are often new to the labour market and do not possess information about workplace rights and entitlements. In addition, they may experience cultural and language barriers and may be reluctant to speak out. This exposes this valuable cohort of workers to practices of exploitation from dishonest labour hire providers.
The ACT’s labour hire licensing scheme will protect these vulnerable workers by incorporating a robust, yet fair, licensing framework into the legislation. The Labour Hire Licensing Bill will promote integrity in the ACT’s labour hire industry; it will ensure that labour hire providers operating in the territory meet their workplace obligations and responsibilities to their workers; and the licensing framework will create an effective system to prevent and respond to noncompliance with workplace standards in the labour hire industry.
As we all know here, I support workers rights. I am proud to stand here and speak in support of this bill. I acknowledge the extensive engagement that has been undertaken with stakeholders in the territory. We should be grateful that employer representatives, employee representatives, workers, the Human Rights Commission and government representatives care about doing what is right in order to protect vulnerable territory workers.
I would like to pick up on something that Mr Wall said. I was an apprentice. I was a small business owner, an owner of several different small businesses. As Ms Orr set out in her tabling speech, this bill is a big thing for bad labour hire firms to be afraid of—massive. Bad labour hire firms should be petrified of this bill. That is what we want to see. We want to see workers protected in this territory. We want to see that all workers have the same rights as everyone else, that all workers feel safe and able to attend their workplace.
This Labor government has been standing up for workers rights, with the passing of the Human Rights (Workers Rights) Amendment Bill the other week and now this Labour Hire Licensing Bill. We are here to ensure that workers are always at the forefront of our minds. We are here to ensure that workers will not be disadvantaged in the workplace under any circumstance. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
MR GUPTA (Yerrabi) (5.15): I rise today in support of the Labour Hire Licensing Bill 2020, which seeks to provide extra protection for Canberrans finding work
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