Labor will not allow its desire for “consensus” at the jobs summit to be “an excuse for inaction”, Tony Burke has said, warning reforms to boost pay and job security will proceed even over employers’ objections.
The workplace relations minister told Guardian Australia he intends to “bring as many measures as possible from Labor’s secure jobs better pay policy in a single bill later in the year” after the September summit.
The comments indicate that job security as an objective of the Fair Work Act, a new test for casual work, limits on fixed-term contracts, criminalisation of wage theft, and making superannuation a workplace right could be before the parliament by year’s end.
In the first week of parliament, Burke will introduce a bill legislating paid family and domestic violence leave, promising to remove one “obstacle from those in an intolerable situation”.
“When someone is in a family and domestic violence situation, there are always many hurdles to getting out,” he said. “I don’t want one of those hurdles to be that you’ll lose your job, that you’ll be poor.”
The timing of the second industrial relations bill would be “informed by whatever information we get out of the jobs summit”, to be held on 1 and 2 September, he said.
Asked if Labor would seek consensus, as unions and the Business Council achieved in their proposal to speed up approval of workplace pay deals, or forge on in the face of employer objections by stripping them of the power to seek the early end of such pay deals, Burke replied “wherever there is consensus, I’ll grab it”.
“But if there’s areas where we don’t get consensus, I won’t use that as an excuse for inaction … I’m certainly willing to act in the absence of consensus.”
Labor had also committed to criminalise wage theft, a reform the Coalition ditched from its omnibus bill in March 2021, caving to employer demands.
Burke said he had “always believed you shouldn’t have a situation where if the employee steals from the employer it’s a crime, but if it happens the other way everyone just says ‘just pay the money back’”.
One reform likely to be omitted from the bill was the “same job same pay” pledge for the labour hire industry.
Burke said the reform was “complex because we know the behaviour we want to stop” – labour hire being used to undercut pay and conditions – but “what we don’t know at the start is all the different business models that are out there”.
“Labour hire has a completely legitimate role dealing with surges [in demand], or dealing with specialised workforces.”
Burke said that reform would “take longer” to avoid “unintended or perverse outcomes” to ensure that only labour hire used to undercut pay deals was targeted.
The jobs summit comes as Australia has achieved near full employment, with unemployment down to 3.5% and many sectors experiencing workforce shortages.
Burke said Australia’s IR system needed “a better pathway to security of employment” for workers who needed “security of income”.
“When casual jobs were predominantly people who were doing work for extra money, like I was for example when I had a casual job as a student … the lack of job security wasn’t really a problem.
“Increasingly now people in insecure work are trying to support families or their own household.
“The business argument for casual work or insecure work as ‘flexibility’ just doesn’t stack up: your rent isn’t flexible, your mortgage, groceries, supporting children isn’t flexible.”
Burke, who is also responsible for employment services, said he was “looking closely” at the controversial ParentsNext education program.
He noted that giving jobseekers a “clean slate” with no penalties during the shift to the Workforce Australia model gave an opportunity to examine the merits of programs that fulfil mutual obligation requirements.
Burke said he had “some” flexibility, although Labor’s options were constrained by the Morrison government signing $7bn of contracts with jobs services providers before leaving office.
“The objective needs to be how do you help people find their way back to employment – it cannot be how to provide profits for providers.
“Some of the providers, from what I’ve seen, really do an excellent job, but there’s no doubt people’s experience is mixed.”
Burke said Labor had committed to be “model employer”, which would include providing an offer of secure employment to contractors in its call centres.
