Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke has raised concerns about insecure work during the pandemic – pointing to the number casual workers at the centre of coronavirus clusters across the nation.
“There is a problem that Australia has had where insecurity for workers … has become a problem for the whole community,” he told Sky News.
“Name a time that we’ve had a quarantine outbreak where it wasn’t someone in insecure work working at multiple workplaces because they couldn’t get enough jobs.
Mr Burke singled out hotel quarantine workers and aged care workers.
“Where you’ve got direct commonwealth money going to provide assistance for people being employed, and yet the outcome that we’ve seen has been not just a problem for those workers but a problem for public health,” he said.
Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke has reinforced job security as a Labor priority while launching a counterattack at Attorney-General Christian Porter for labelling the new IR reform package as an “extinction level” event.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese unveiled an eight-point plan for an Industrial Relations overhaul on Wednesday night with entitlements and benefits for casual workers in the gig economy a centrepiece feature of the new scheme.
Mr Burke backed the strategy, claiming what business needs to transition out of the pandemic-induced downturn is a customer base with the confidence to spend.
“If people have security it means they can afford to spend, they can have the confidence to spend, it determines whether or not they can get a loan.”
Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Porter described the IR reform plan as one of the most unlimited, unqualified, quite outlandish promises that has ever been made in the history of industrial relations”.
“It doesn