SUBJECTS: Wage theft; Horticulture; minimum wage; piece rates; labour shortages; industrial relations; JobKeeper; tourism support package; insecure work; polling. 

MARK MOREY, SECRETARY OF UNIONS NSW: My name is Mark Morey. I'm the Secretary of Unions New South Wales. I have the Federal Opposition Leader with me, Mr Anthony Albanese. And I have who you'll hear from later, Mr Wang, who's actually been working on farms. Today we've released a report that shows no matter how hard you work, even with the piece rates which are meant to incentivise work, of the thousand people we spoke to, the thousand job ads we looked at and the hundred people we spoke to in our focus groups, no worker could achieve minimum rates of pay. No worker could achieve minimum rates of pay no matter how hard they worked. They averaged about $15 to $18 an hour. And at the extremes, people were being paid less than $2 an hour with their work, no matter how hard they worked. And in addition to that, they will charge for board and rent and lodging. So they were actually making nothing as they worked on farms. This is a national disgrace. No one in this country would have their children working on a farm like this. 

These organisations have said in recent days that they are short of labour, they can't get people to work on their farms. Well, I'm saying to these agricultural associations, I'm saying to the farmers of Australia, if you clean up your act, you pay the minimum rates for pay, as per the award, you will get your workers. The piecemeal rate in this country needs to be abolished. It is providing indentured servitude to people who are on visas, who are forced to go to regional and rural areas to extend their visas. And because they are not citizens, they are unable to enforce their industrial and legal rights. They are subjected to harassment. They are subject to exploitation. And in one instance that we came across, sexual assault. This is not the Australian way. It is not appropriate. And in fact, in towns like Caboolture, Bundaberg, Mildura and Coffs Harbour, people are picking for less than $2 a day. Less than $2 a day. No one should allow this to happen. And on today, the day when the Federal Government has walked away from providing legislation to eradicate wage theft, Mr Morrison has said to the young people of Australia and visa workers, ‘You are now at the behest of people who want to exploit you and this Federal Government will not care for you nor will it look after you, nor will it enforce your industrial rights’. 

Today, we're calling on the agriculture sector in Australia to clean up its own backyard, to stop sending people into poverty. Rather, have a backbone, provide minimum rates of pay and you will get your workforce. There is a need to look at the business model in the agriculture sector in Australia. And that's what this Government should be doing rather than supporting wage theft. We are seeking the abolition of piece rates. It is supposed to be an incentive. It is a disincentive, and it consigns workers to poverty rates of pay. And finally, like the stories you'll hear today from Mr Wang, we will continue to expose this exploitation in Australia no matter what sector. But we will not stand for the agriculture sector to bleat and cry poor when it is resigning to ensure that workers are exploited and don't get their appropriate rates of pay and conditions in the workplace. Australia is better than this. Farmers need to be better than this. I'll hand over to Mr Wang to tell his story. It will be interpreted. We have handed around an English version of the speech as well for you. 

XUELIANG WANG, FARM WORKER: Hello everyone. My name is Wang Xueliang, and I am from Inner Mongolia, China. I have been working on farms in many cities in Australia since 2018, following the changes of the seasons. I have picked tomatoes, grapes, oranges, blueberries and other crops. What I want to tell you today is that in horticulture, a highly profitable industry, workers engaged in picking work are not getting the treatment that they deserve. In my three years of experience, the most serious exploitation of workers was a tomato farm in Coffs Harbour. When I was working on the piece-rate system, I found that this factory exploited its workers through an opaque piece-rate method. I worked there for three months, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. But I could only earn eight Australian dollars an hour. Almost all dozens of workers there are the same. 

Australia is the first country in the world to implement an eight-hour work system. Today, food-producing workers are treated like slavery. This is ironic. Due to the poor sanitation environment, the number of toilets is seriously insufficient, we are not allowed to get rest, and vegetables are often contaminated by human excrement. The farmer also collects high rents from the workers. For a six-person tin house, the farmer can collect a total of nearly $1,000 a week from the rent. Most of the workers’ income is forced to pay for accommodation. 

The current system lacks protection and respect for workers. My work on the farm is very hard, we need to follow the season to run around. I have been working on the farm for three years and I am now suffering from frozen shoulder. At the hardest time, I needed to pick 5,000 tomato plants a day on the tomato farm. My right shoulder cannot move as freely as my left shoulder. And this is just to earn eight Australian dollars per hour. 

I thank the union for the invitation. I stand up today and share my story with you because there are thousands of workers like me who are experiencing the same or even worse working environments. As workers, they should enjoy a reasonable salary and a safe and hygienic working environment. This request is not excessive. I believe that Australia, as a democratic, free, and pro human rights country, can respect its workers. Exploitation is not the spirit of Australia. Thank you, everyone. 

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, thank you very much, Mr Wang. And thank you for your courage in coming forward to explain clearly to the Australian people what is going on in our country. This report, wage theft, the shadow market, is an important contribution to knowledge about what is happening in our midst. We cannot turn away from it. Here in Australia, we take for granted the concept, if you asked out there in the public, ‘Do we pay the minimum wage in Australia?’ People would say yes. The minimum wage in this country is $19.84. It is the bare minimum to get by. And yet Mr Wang working seven days a week, twelve hours a day for $8 an hour. $8. Less than half of the minimum wage. This report outlines Nadia from Taiwan working on a strawberry farm earning less than $10 an hour. The other thing that occurs in some of these properties is that then after that, they take money off the workers to pay for their accommodation. And it outlines as well the inadequate facilities that are there. People crammed into dormitories without proper access even to toilet facilities. This isn't the Australian way. We need to do much, much better. And we need to address this now. The Government has a report before it done by John Azarias. And it's important the Government response to that report. But it's also important that they respond to the issue of ensuring that all Australians have access to a minimum wage. They also need to make sure that they address the issues of secure work. But what we saw yesterday was the Government gutting its own industrial relations bill and leaving just one change intact, a change that makes work more insecure, a change to casual work that will change the definition so that people who are essentially in permanent work can give to their employers all the benefit of knowing that they have that permanent worker but without any of the conditions that come with permanent work, no annual leave, no sick leave, without the same entitlements that Australians have fought for. I am proud to be here at the Labor Council of New South Wales because it is right here that unions have fought for these conditions, on behalf of not just workers but on behalf of the workers to come. These things haven't been given; they have been fought for. And it is important that we don't just give them away. Yesterday, as well, saw the Government engaging in petulant, active vindictiveness because it couldn't get its wage cuts through the Senate. They got rid of the provisions that were supported by every Senator and every Member of the House of Representatives about wage theft. An extraordinary act from an immature Government that is in chaos, that doesn't have the concern of Australian workers at its core. What they have is everything is about political management. And if Scott Morrison, because he couldn't get his full bill through, got rid of the wage theft provisions as he did yesterday, I just find that an extraordinary act of petulance from a Prime Minister who thinks that he should just get to decide everything that happens in the Parliament and that democracy is an inconvenience that he shouldn't have to deal with. Well, I say to him and I say to the Government, I say to employers and I say to representative organisations, this report outlines the circumstances that is not good enough. It needs addressing. We do need to address the need to make sure that our agricultural produce is able to be picked, that our farms are allowed to operate. But we need to do it in a way that is one that we can be proud of the product we produce. Because there are many farmers out there overwhelmingly who are doing the right thing. And if you allow exploitation to occur, you are putting them at a competitive disadvantage by doing the right thing. Which is why the Government needs to respond to this report, which is why farmers organisations need to respond as well, and why today I think Mr Wang's story is so powerful. Happy to take questions. 

JOURNALIST: Farmers say that Australians don't want to harvest crops and that overseas workers are often just doing the job to extend their visas. How would a Labor Government address the labour shortage in the workforce? 

ALBANESE: It is not surprising that Australians don't want to work for $2 an hour. That is of no surprise. It is of no surprise that Australians don't want to do what Mr Wang has just told us firsthand. Work 12 hours a day for $8 an hour. That is not surprising. They need to do better. I certainly know that there are many Australians, as well as visitors to Australia, who enjoy the seasonal work, who enjoy getting out and about and getting to see this great country of ours with all of its diversity, being able to engage in workplaces, as well, is an enjoyable experience for so many workers stop. And I have talked first-hand to them. But we need to do better than this. We need to ensure exploitation doesn't occur. And that is one way of getting the message out there that this is a job and a task that should be filled, that can satisfy the decent living income for those who undertake it, while also helping the entire country.

JOURNALIST: Some workers say they prefer the piece-rate because it allows them to make better wages and that an hourly rate would take away wage support. 

ALBANESE: Not at all, what we're saying is this should be a minimum rate. There has got to be a minimum rate. You can't have no bottom. That is why we have minimum wage rates. Here in this building, 130 years ago, unions decided they would take their struggle against exploitation into the political sphere by forming the great Australian Labor Party. And in two weeks' time we will hold our conference which will commemorate that. The fact is that one of the things that has been fought for is conditions like eight hours work, eight hours sleep, eight hours recreation with family. That is something that has been fought for. Minimum wage rates have been fought for. I find it extraordinary that this Government, when we have raised the issue of minimum wage rates, says that it is complicated. What is complicated about saying that we have a minimum wage rate in this country of $19.84 and no-one should be paid below it? People can be paid above. And we welcome that. In some cases, it is true that piece work does mean that some workers can be paid more. But guess what? They will be some of the good employers. And there are many good employers out there. Most farmers want to do the right thing. They know if you're doing the right thing and you have a happy workforce, a happy workforce is a more productive workforce. So let's work together here to solve these issues. But what we can't do is just ignore it and say that because Mr Wang has come from the Mongolian province of China that his concerns can be ignored, because English, of course, isn't his first language. We have a responsibility to look after everyone on our shores, including Mr Wang. 

JOURNALIST: Are you planning to open talks with the Government about (inaudible)? 

ALBANESE: We are up for discussion. We have said very clearly that we are up for any discussion about secure work and better working conditions. We are up for discussion. And I addressed the Business Council of Australia just two days ago, it's been a long week, on Wednesday morning. And there I spoke about enterprise bargaining getting better outcomes for employers and employees through productivity. That's the Hawke-Keating model. It's one which people in the ACTU participated in good faith, discussions with the Government on. And what happened when the legislation came out, something that hadn't been discussed at any stage during those negotiations, getting rid of the Better Off Overall Test, was the centrepiece of the discussions. Unions are up for discussions at the Labor Council level or the ACTU individual unions. I'll give you an example. In Canberra just a few weeks ago, his is the second time I've heard Mr Wang speak. There, he spoke at an alliance meeting that includes the Shop Distributive Association for the people who sell the product, the Transport Workers Union, the people who take the product to market, and the Australian Workers Union who represent horticultural sector, and Coles, an employer who said that look at the whole supply chain issue in terms of their product. Good industrial relations is good for employers as well as employees. I think there's a common interest there. Which is why we need to make sure that we address this issue. 

JOURNALIST: Qantas has announced the extending of the Government's financial support to provide $500 a week. Is that good use of taxpayers' money? 

ALBANESE: Well, I have said that with regard to the package, support for the international airlines to maintain a position so they're ready to go when restrictions are lifted, is a good thing. It is a good thing. My problem with this package is all the people who've been left out. All those tourism operators who have been left out, who aren't getting any support from this Government. And on March 28, JobKeeper ends. When JobKeeper ends, it will have a devastating impact on the economy and on individuals. It will mean that many workers lose their job, and many businesses go to the wall. And my concern, as well, is the different attitude that this Government has, and we saw it on display in Question Time yesterday, towards JobKeeper. On the one hand, we have literally the most money that has ever been misallocated from any program in Australian history, which is JobKeeper going to companies that have increased their profits, not decreased them, used that to pay executive bonuses, and when we raised that in the Parliament, taxpayers' money going directly to executive bonuses at the same time as supports being withdrawn from people who need it, the Treasurer said that it's good that companies are making profits. And it is good that they are making profits. But it's no good that taxpayers' money is going straight into those increased profits and to executive bonuses whilst at the same time workers are missing out by losing JobKeeper. This is a Government that is very weak when it comes to addressing the strong and very strong when it comes to addressing those who are in a weak position in society. And that compares with the $1.2 billion they have to pay out for Robodebt where if you were on social security, struggling to get by, you got notices and threats from Government ministers, including threats about jail time from Government ministers, and threats about having to pay back money, some of which we know now, $1.2 billion of it, actually wasn't owed. And you compare that with if you're running a big company and you've got an executive bonus and your profits are up, well, 'No problem, nothing to see here. You can keep that. That's a good thing'. This Government's priorities are all wrong. And what I say is that we are on Mr Wang's side. Labor is on the side of decent wages and conditions. Labor is on the side of minimum wages. Labor is on the side of providing support to businesses and to individual workers who need. 

JOURNALIST: (Inaudible). 

ALBANESE: No, I haven't. 

JOURNALIST: Does it concern you? 

ALBANESE: I haven't seen it. I look at real polls. Real polls are published by companies like Newspoll, Morgan and others. And I haven't seen any. Thanks very much. 

ENDS