Labor scrambling to pass IR bill as Lambie, Pocock push back

The federal government is continuing to face contention with its sweeping overhaul of workplace laws, with the support of two key senators needed to get the legislation over the line remaining up in the air.

Labor is on the quest to secure the backing of crossbenchers Jacqui Lambie and David Pocock with elements of its Closing Loopholes Bill which has been stuck in the senate since last year over disagreements between the two sides.

With the government not having a majority in the upper house, winning over the two independent senators is focal in passing the proposed laws.

But while Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has succeeded in negotiating several points of dispute after “constructive” talks with both business groups and the senators, Ms Lambie and Mr Pocock remain concerned on some of the proposed measures, including the “right to disconnect”.

The proposal is aimed at stopping employers from making “unreasonable contact” with staff out of working office hours and seeks to give workers the legal right to ignore such emails and calls.

Ms Lambie said she felt the rule was unnecessary and would create “argy bargy” in companies requiring legitimate out of hours work and that sufficient legislative processes were already in place to support workers who felt they were being exploited.

“If you have a problem, then you go to Fair Work. That already exists,” she told ABC Radio National on Wednesday.

“I think going through COVID there is more than enough flexibility for Australian workers out there already and I just am really really concerned.”

The Senator said she had never witnessed a worker raise plausible concerns with out of hours employer contact, questioning why the change was needed if it was “not a problem”.

“I have to say nobody has ever spoken to me in the 10 years I’ve been in and out of politics, about phone calls after hours, not one person and even going through this not one person,” she said.

“And I’ve been out there with my boots on the ground because I’m running a team in Tasmania for the state election. Not one person has mentioned anything about that. Not ever. So, I just think if there’s not a problem why are we trying to fix it?”

Meanwhile Senator Pocock, speaking alongside Ms Lambie on the news segment, acknowledged there was a genuine need for right to disconnect provisions amongst Australian workers, but conceded the difficulty in distinguishing between reasonable and unreasonable contact.

“We’ve never done this before in terms of legislation,” he said.

“Clearly there’s a whole range of scenarios where it is totally reasonable – if someone’s offering you a shift for the next day or if there’s an emergency or something to do with workplace health and safety.

“But this, simply enshrining the right that if you have clocked off and you do not think it’s reasonable and don’t have to respond and then your employer cannot hold that against you or use that against you (is a concern).”

Speaking to Sky News Australia on Sunday, Minister Burke admitted these challenges were yet to be worked through: “There’s a lot of scaffolding you need to put around it. I do think there’s a real problem for some workers, I’m interested in trying to fix it for them.”

Another major point of disagreement from the vast tranche of industrial relations reforms the Albanese government is seeking to resolve with the senators includes regulations of the gig economy.

These relate to the rights of casual workers to convert to permanent full-time contracts and rules around minimum pay and conditions.

“I have a problem with casual employment, the definition of that,” Senator Lambie said.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) issued a joint statement with the CEOs of all national, state, and territory business chambers on Tuesday calling on the senate to “carefully reconsider the implications of this rushed and flawed industrial relations legislation” during parliamentary debate this week.

“We are gravely concerned that the proposed legislation will harm all business owners and operators, especially growing ones,” it read.

“The legislation will also impact the prospects for the very employees that it purports to protect. It will damage the communities that are reliant on the growth and resilience of local businesses.”

The ACCI urged senators to view the proposed IR overhaul from the wider perspective of “mainstream Australia”, the cornerstone of which is family enterprise and small business.

Matters of concern flagged from the bill include employee-like forms of work, casual employment, powers for union officials, road transport, intractable bargaining, and the right to disconnect.

Read the full statement here.