Labour Hire Licensing (Scope of Act) Amendment Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 13 November 2025.)

The Hon. B.R. HOOD (12:45): I rise today to speak in opposition to this bill and indicate that I will be the lead speaker for the opposition. I also indicate that the opposition will not be supporting the Hon. Tammy Franks' amendment. The short point here is that the original act was amended by the Marshall government in the last parliament. What this bill is now doing is restoring the status quo, and it is no more complicated than that. Essentially, we are dealing with a difference of view about the scope of the relevant provisions.

The important matters that have been raised, including by the Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) about the need for this reversion ought to be taken on board by the government. We need not be here. It is a retrograde step to go back and render the situation as it was back in 2017 when the Weatherill Labor government first introduced it.

It ought to be noted that the Liberal opposition at that time opposed the bill on the grounds that such industries should be regulated nationally as labour hire providers and that we were increasing, by state legislation, the red tape on providers already complying with existing worker protection laws. If these added amounts of red tape were going to do nothing beneficial then we were not going to capture the culprits, the subject of the committee reporting of the media at the time, and the providers who were already flouting the law were going to continue and avoid them anyway.

As I said at the outset, the Marshall Liberal government introduced the changes that it proposed by way of an amendment bill in 2019. The scope of those amendments was to establish an industry-specific model relating particularly to horticulture, meat and seafood processing, cleaning and security industries. These were considered high-risk workplaces by various state and federal government reports. At the same time, it removed most of the imprisonment penalties.

The bill that we have now seen the government come along and introduce in recent weeks would effectively undo those changes, expand the scope of the act to cover all labour hire firms and, by clause 4, do some work to exclude directors, partners, sole traders and high-income workers. That would largely capture expert professional workers contracted or seconded to another company. Clause 5 would also exclude from the definition of 'labour hire workers' those who are moved within a single corporate group or public sector employees transferred between government agencies.

As I have said, this is legislation that is not supported by a variety of industry groups, including the Ai Group, and the opposition is opposed to it. For what it is worth, we would urge the government to reconsider proceeding any further with this bill and perhaps go back and continue to engage with those industry groups, particularly the Ai Group, which I commend for its engagement and its assistance to the opposition in considering the scope of labour hire legislation in this state. With that, I conclude my remarks. We will be opposing the bill and the amendments coming forthwith.

The Hon. C. BONAROS (12:48): I rise to speak on the Labour Hire Licensing (Scope of Act) Amendment Bill 2025. In so doing, I refer back to a speech that I gave in this place in June 2020. During that speech—where I found myself as the meat in the sandwich between two sides who were clearly politicking over what should and should not happen over labour hire—I reflected on the proposal that was initially put by the then Attorney-General, which I did not agree with, on her assessment that the reforms that were originally made were driven by blind ideology, and my reluctance to play into the blind ideology of both political parties on this issue at that time and going forward. Certainly, I was caught up in the middle of politicking between those parties who could not come to a position on this.

It was on that basis, at the time, that I sought to rely on the advice of the most impartial office I could find in relation to the changes that were being proposed by the then government, namely the Commissioner for Consumer and Business Services. The position I took at the time was based solely around the advice that I had sought and taken from the commissioner. I will come back to that point, because I am intrigued to know what has changed in the advice of the commissioner today compared to when we made these changes in 2020. As I stated at the time:

The introduction of the current labour hire licensing laws were prompted by the 2015 airing of the Four Corners program, Slaving Away, which has been referred to and highlighted the potential for ruthless exploitation of our most vulnerable workers. It focused predominantly on migrant workers working in industries such as meat processing and fruit and vegetable picking, and it was—

at the time and, I am sure, continues to be today—

disturbing viewing. It uncovered a culture of modern-day slavery, excessive working hours, coupled with gross underpayment of wages. One foreign worker spoke of being paid $3.95 per hour for grape picking. Another spoke of working 18 hours a day in an Adelaide poultry factory, and another of living in a horse stable with more than 10 other people in a similar predicament. It also touched on a number of state and federal reviews into worker exploitation.

At the time, in 2020, the advice was that Victoria and Queensland had schemes that echoed the legislation. The Northern Territory and Western Australia had made announcements but were yet to enact, New South Wales and Tasmania had not yet declared their hands, but what was abundantly clear was the need for a national scheme. The Attorney at the time drew this out, to the extent that she could, in an effort to try to convince the then Morrison government to work on federal legislation that would protect vulnerable workers from exploitation by dodgy labour hire companies. Overwhelmingly, I think the view remains that this is something that ought to be dealt with at a national level.

So that takes us to what has happened at a national level. I note the arrangement that was put in place for a national labour hire scheme between the commonwealth and Victoria, for a trial, which I think was expected to expire in June of this year. It had federal funding of about $4 million for Victoria, as in-principle host jurisdiction, to lead national labour hire implementation development as well as the establishment a project office to manage a range of scoping and planning work for a national labour hire regulator. That project office was established in April 2024.

As part of that arrangement, there was going to be engagement of external consultants, development of costs and funding options for such a regulator, staffing costs, expenditure and so forth. At its core, that funding was, as I said, to look at Victoria, as a host state, establishing a scheme as a trial that would form the basis of national reforms in this area.

That brings me back to this bill, because we now seem to be going back to the drawing board and effectively, in the last week of parliament, undoing the last reforms of the opposition, which I agreed to, with amendment, at the time, not based on the advice of the opposition but based on the advice of the commissioner and what that scheme ought to look like if it were to continue in this state.

There were amendments filed to ensure that it was not scrapped, as was originally being proposed, which I certainly did not agree to, but that it canvassed those high-risk categories. There are five high-risk categories that were identified at the time. Thinking back to the advice by the commissioner, the advice certainly was at the time that if this is an open scheme that applies across the board, then we will not be able to zero in on and focus on the worst offenders in the worst industries. It is on that basis that five industries were highlighted as the worst offenders, with the ability to add additional industries to that list by regulation.

So my first and obvious question is: since those changes in 2020 have we added any additional industries to those categories or was and does the commissioner remain satisfied that the breadth of the legislation remains satisfactorily focused on the worst offenders? That leads me to my next question, and I have looked back at the YourSAy website of the government when—indeed, this was on the commissioner's page but points to the views not of the commissioner but of the government. That page reads:

The government is concerned that current laws leave some workers without important protections and allow labour hire providers to operate without licensing criteria.

My next question is: is the view being espoused by the commissioner on behalf of the government also shared by the commissioner, and what views has the commission itself raised, or concerns has the commission itself raised, in relation to the operation of this scheme since it was amended in 2020?

That is my core concern here. In the absence of anything happening I note that at the time, as I said, the former Attorney-General was urging her federal counterparts, the Morrison government, to do their bit to implement a scheme. That did not come to be. Following on from that, we now have a Labor federal government that entered into an arrangement with a host jurisdiction in Victoria to enter into a scheme.

That trial was intended to continue into this year. I do not know where we are in terms of that national scheme that has now been the subject of not just discussion federally but a trial in one jurisdiction, and it is for that reason that I am left here scratching my head trying to figure out why it is that in the absence of a nationally consistent approach, which is what we all know should be taken on this issue, we are back here at the eleventh hour, just prior to parliament finishing, contemplating a scheme which takes us back to the original position before any of the amendments were moved, back to a scheme that certainly was not in line with the advice that we received from the commission in 2020, which resulted in the passage of a very different bill from that which the opposition had initially drafted and put before us at the time.

To be absolutely clear, none of us want to see vulnerable workers exploited, but there was some merit at the time in what the commission was saying in terms of making this open to everybody or focusing in on those groups where exploitation and vulnerability was at its highest. The commission's advice at the time was that by making us focus on everybody we take our eyes off the worst offenders in those industries. It was on that basis that five groups were carved out, with the ability to add more groups, more industries by regulation.

Ai Group was supportive of the changes at the time and opposed to the changes today, because of the broad brush approach and potentially unintended consequences and how far the current scope would apply. I am not going to dwell on this. Everyone can refer back to 16 June 2020—it was a Tuesday—when we had this debate in here and we canvassed all these issues, but I will remind everybody that the advice at the time was based not on what Labor thought and not on what the Liberals thought but what those who were responsible for oversight of a labour hire scheme in this jurisdiction said was the best outcome for our state.

In the absence of advice from them to suggest that that scheme is not working, I do not understand how it is that we are here proposing further changes to this bill, especially in the absence of that national scheme that we have all talked about for so many years now. It is on that basis that I am not supportive of this bill, not because I support exploitation of workers but because we need to ensure that those workers are the ones that we focus on.

My questions again to the government during committee stage and during wrap-up of the minister will be: are the views of the government shared by the commission today? Have any further categories been added to the list of schemes that are covered by the current legislation via regulation? Has consideration been given to adding any other categories to that scheme on the advice of the commission, and what in fact is the advice of the commission with respect to the need for these changes?

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.

Sitting suspended from 13:02 to 14:17.