Thursday, 14 August 2025

Wage Theft Amendment Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Steve Dimopoulos:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Cindy McLEISH (Eildon) (15:32): It has taken some time for me to get to my feet to be able to make a contribution to the Wage Theft Amendment Bill 2025. It is a little bit hard to understand how important the government thinks this matter is. I know it repeals quite a large chunk of legislation, but it was introduced on 2 April, some four months ago, and it clearly has not been urgent for the government. The bill does a number of things. It repeals the wage theft offences and related provisions. It changes the name of the Wage Inspectorate Victoria to Workforce Inspectorate Victoria and confers new functions on that inspectorate – it changes the titles and makes some transitional provisions.

I just want to give a little bit of history, though, of why parts of the Wage Theft Act 2020 are being repealed. In 2020 the government introduced the Wage Theft Act, and this was around deliberately and dishonestly withholding wages and superannuation. I think everybody in this house would agree that if you have done the work you should be appropriately paid for it. Whether it is in your job or whether that is casually or for a short-term contract, you should receive the moneys that you have earned, and people generally think that is a good thing. But the government actually say one thing and do the other.

Earlier this year, in March 2025, it was reported in the Age that junior doctors in fact won a landmark $175 million settlement with the Victorian government, who did not quite get the wage thing right. It is easy for them to talk it up, but they actually underpaid overtime for doctors working at public hospitals. That $175 million agreement will benefit up to 15,000 staff working across 36 Victorian health services for a decade, pretty well – from January 2015 to now. They did not log unscheduled overtime because they were unaware of their entitlements or feared it would negatively affect their career. So despite the government introducing the Wage Theft Act in 2020, they continued to flout these laws and not make sure that people knew exactly what they were entitled to.

Not so long ago the Commonwealth took over the powers, so the government here needed to know what to do. The Commonwealth – and I quite like this, a nice little bit of spin from the Commonwealth government, calling it the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Act 2024 – through that act dealt with the fair work legislation, and essentially the functions of the Wage Theft Act have been rolled into the federal legislation. As I have said, the purpose of the bill here essentially is to repeal the wage theft offences and their related functions. That is why it is here; that is the main reason. But there are a number of other elements of the bill, including those around the Wilson review and also renaming the Wage Inspectorate Victoria as the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria and, as I said, conferring those new functions.

I just want to raise an issue and bring to the house’s attention a matter with the Wage Inspectorate Victoria experienced in my electorate. It was an absolutely very poor piece of work by the inspectorate itself. One of the hospitality businesses in the town had employed a number of younger people whose parents had actually asked them if they had a job for them, and they did have a job. They thought that people who were 14 years and nine months could work in that business. And they heard something on the radio and thought, ‘Gee, maybe it’s actually 15 years.’ So they rang the Wage Inspectorate Victoria to say, ‘What’s the standing here? Are we correct or are we incorrect? And if we’re incorrect, we’d better fix it.’ So they argy-bargied on it for a little bit and then looked at all of the employment records and then charged them with 101 criminal offences relating to employing children. Those 101 offences were the number of shifts worked collectively between those three people that they had worked without the proper permits and a couple of other things.

They self-reported this and it went to court, and each of these charges was 100 penalty points, $18,000, each. There were 101. This was going to absolutely bankrupt a perfectly legitimate business who had thought they were doing everything right and who had gone for clarification. They were thrown through the wringer. I know the couple who were involved – I know them quite well – and saw how devastated they were. It went to court and it essentially got thrown out, because it was ridiculous given that they had self-reported and they had not intentionally done this at all. They fessed up. They said, ‘Yes, we had done it, but we didn’t know we were doing the wrong thing. We rang to clarify whether we were.’ They had that early plea and they were of exceptional character, so there was no conviction and they were ordered to pay $2000 to the court fund. And from the stories that I have heard from the couple about what happened in the court, the Wage Inspectorate Victoria got a big smack over the knuckles, a big rap over the knuckles, for how they handled that. And then the following summer the wage inspectorate went down probably to your electorate, Acting Speaker Marchant, and to many others on the Surf Coast, talking to all of the businesses to make sure they understood it, because it was not clearly understood. Now we are seeing that there have been changes in this area, and I would like to see any government agency behave with a lot more integrity than happened in that case.

Other parts of this bill are around the construction industry, and in the second-reading speech, right up-front, it reads:

Criminal and unlawful behaviour has no place in Victoria’s construction industry.

It has no place but it is thriving, and this government has let it thrive. We have heard the stories of the rorts, of the ghost shifts and of people snoozing on the job but still getting paid. Victorians deserve to know the extent of what is happening here and the extent to which bikies and organised criminals have infiltrated major projects and how this was allowed to occur. Who is responsible? How much has it cost taxpayers?

Not only have we had those sorts of rorts, but women on construction sites have been subjected to bullying, harassment and rape threats and have received payouts. The treatment of women on these construction sites – government-funded build sites in fact – with the CFMEU was appalling. We had three cases that were outlined, by the Age again – Nick McKenzie, Sarah Danckert and Amelia Ballinger – in March this year: a bikie-linked CFMEU health and safety rep, on a rail level crossing removal, during his lunchbreak bashed a woman; somebody else was locked in a room while the bloke who detained her smoked ice; and there was a video image of a bloke absolutely kicking a woman and punching her. What concerns me greatly is that this government talk a big game on protecting women. Well, you have absolutely let them down with that thuggish union that you all rely on so heavily. Men with violent histories are pushed onto worksites and are punishing women if they complain about their behaviour. Importantly, the Premier of the day was the minister in charge at that time. It is absolutely appalling. So the blowouts, the corruption and the crimes against women fit fairly and squarely with her.

As a result, the Wilson review was undertaken and this was to have a look at some of these sorts of actions and activities. Whilst seven recommendations have been made, today we are dealing with only two of them. We understand that the other recommendations will be dealt with in further legislation down the line. We are not exactly sure when. This is such an important issue, and this behaviour is horrific and abhorrent and should not be tolerated. The government say they do not tolerate it, but we are still seeing these sorts of things reported, and it is just not good enough. With the Wilson review particularly, we are looking at strengthening the powers of the Victorian government bodies that are engaged with or have oversight of construction companies or construction unions to respond to allegations of criminal or other unlawful conduct in the Victorian construction sector. This is the sort of thing that they were looking at, the consideration of recommendations about what should be done. We have got one here about a clearing house where they have not actually got teeth but they are taking complaints and dishing them out to make sure that the right bodies deal with them. They should be doing more.

Meng Heang TAK (Clarinda) (15:42): I am delighted to rise today to make a contribution on the Wage Theft Amendment Bill 2025. This is an important bill and one that has relevance to many of my constituents and my community. First, the objective of the bill is to give effect to the government’s commitment to repeal Victoria’s wage theft law in light of the commencement of the Commonwealth national law. With the Wage Inspectorate Victoria no longer responsible for the investigation and enforcement of Victoria’s wage theft offences, it is no longer appropriate for it to continue to be named the wage inspectorate and it will instead be renamed Workforce Inspectorate Victoria (WIV), also known as the workforce inspectorate, to reflect the broader regulatory responsibility.

Acting Speaker Marchant, I am so proud, just like you, to be a member of a government that is committed to workers rights and one that has delivered some really historic pieces of legislation to better protect the rights of workers and working people in Victoria, and criminalising wage theft is just one important example of that. I was proud to stand here in this chamber to join the debate on criminalising wage theft and to establish the Wage Inspectorate Victoria to investigate and to prosecute wage theft offences, which was several years ago now. Allow me to say, I was extremely proud also to stand on behalf of the many vulnerable workers in my electorate – the hospitality workers, the agricultural workers and the migrant workers – that have suffered from high levels of wage theft and to make wage theft a criminal offence. In saying that, I would like to also take up the points in your contribution, Acting Speaker. It is about making sure that every worker gets the right amount of pay, so it is fair for all, and it is also helping those who want to do the right thing, especially the employer and the contractor, to do the right thing and their fair share.

Wage theft was a constant struggle for many of my constituents, especially those working in agriculture, overseas students and those on working holiday visas. Those changes were a real milestone and testament to all of those fighting against wage theft. I have spoken many times here in this place about how each and every morning you will find streams of people movers, minibuses and mini-vans transporting agricultural farm workers to farms in the outer suburbs from my electorate in the south-east. If you go down to Springvale South early in the morning, it is quite a spectacle to see. Again, it is all about fairness, it is all about the right pay.

Not many years ago, after I arrived in Australia in 1996 – I have said this in the chamber before and I would like to say it again – I travelled on those minibuses during high school holidays or uni breaks to work on a farm during that time. I would be in that minibus first thing in the morning, down to a strawberry farm on the Mornington Peninsula. I appreciated the opportunity to work during that time, to earn some savings during holiday time. There was never any bargaining power or questions about the hourly rate. I was more than happy to be picked up by that mini-van in the morning. Many of my friends did the same thing. By the end of the school holidays we had a couple of thousand dollars to buy our books and pay for our train tickets and the like. We never knew that there was such a thing as wage theft because as youngsters we did not care.

But now we understand that there are things that need to be done. I was very proud to stand in this chamber back in 2020 when the wage theft laws were introduced. I also would like to commend the efforts of the National Union of Workers, now the United Workers Union, for grinding away and organising many of the farm workers that live in my electorate and helping them to raise their voice and to raise issues of unemployment, to report instances of wage theft and, importantly, to collectively bargain for better wages and working conditions. I really commend and thank the United Workers Union for that great work. It has changed working people’s lives for the better and made a significant difference to the lives of many people living in my electorate, so thank you to all those involved.

I am really proud to rise today in different circumstances but still to make a contribution and to celebrate the important changes that have come from Victoria’s wage theft legislation. I am very proud that Victoria led the way and was the first state to introduce criminal offences targeting the deliberate, dishonest underpayment of wages. Again, I listened to the contributions of many speakers on this side of the house before me. It is all about making sure there is a fair share for all. We were the only jurisdiction to establish an independent body with a strong investigative power to enforce those criminal laws, the Wage Inspectorate Victoria. Since then we have seen positive change with the Commonwealth criminal offences which cover the field with respect to the enforcement of wage underpayments and other entitlements. I am very proud to be here and to participate in this national change. We now have the ability to repeal all Victoria’s offences to avoid uncertainty for the community, businesses and workers, given that national carriage. Those are now historic national changes, a testament to all of the workers that have raised their voice and pushed back against years of exploitation and underpayment.

In the remaining time, I would just like to touch briefly on the second objective of the bill, which is to acquit recommendation 1 of the Wilson review into the Victorian government body’s engagement with construction companies and construction unions by conferring a complaint referral function to the workforce inspectorate to allow it to receive and refer complaints from any person relating to public construction. This is an important and welcome change. The government has committed to supporting all recommendations of the Wilson review, either in principle or in full. Providing the workforce inspectorate with a function to receive and refer complaints related to public construction will expedite the implementation of recommendation 1, as it will be quicker to set up the function within an existing regulator rather than establish a standalone body. Further policy work is underway to address the remainder of the Wilson recommendations, including implementing requirements in construction policies and contracts to require principal contractors on government-funded construction sites to report criminal or other unlawful conduct to the WIV and strengthening the Labour Hire Authority’s regulatory power. I look forward to the outcome of that work. I commend the former Attorney-General, in her role as Minister for Industrial Relations, for bringing this forward and for continuing to deliver important changes to hardworking Victorians.

Michael O’BRIEN (Malvern) (15:52): I rise to speak on the Wage Theft Amendment Bill 2025. It was back on 1 January 1997 that the Victorian government referred its industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth under the Commonwealth Powers (Industrial Relations) Act 1996. That was quite a landmark decision at the time. The state government of the day, the Kennett government, made the decision that there was no need to have a dual system of industrial relations regulation in this state, that there were sufficient protections and that, in fact, there were some real advantages for Victorian businesses and for Victorian employees to operate under a unified national system of industrial relations law. For that reason, the Victorian government effectively gave up its right to legislate in this space, with the referral of its powers to the Commonwealth Parliament.

It has always been something I have found a little bit peculiar, particularly as somebody who did practise some industrial relations law in my previous life. If this government is so keen to legislate in the field of IR, why doesn’t the government take the powers back? If the government is so keen to legislate in areas of industrial relations and if it wants to establish its own workplace bureaucracies and put taxpayers through all this horrible expense, why doesn’t the government do what it really wants to do?

Mathew Hilakari interjected.

Michael O’BRIEN: I can tell what the member for Point Cook really wants to do, and I can see what the advisers in the advisers box want to do – they want to take those powers back. Why don’t they just do it, instead of going through this stupid charade of pretending to legislate in industrial relations areas where the government has got no power to do so. We know what happened when the government tried to use these wage theft laws, which they are now repealing in this bill. The government tried to use these wage theft laws and took a business to court – a business called Macedon Lodge – and there were 94 criminal charges against this regional restaurant for what the government described as wage theft. The business, like most people involved in the industry, thought that the government’s wage theft laws were unconstitutional. So a little matter which was originally set down for the Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court wound up going to the High Court of Australia, because the person who was charged and the business that was charged under these wage theft laws wanted to test whether they were in fact legitimate or not – whether they were in fact valid laws or not.

The Victorian solicitor-general at the time was Rowena Orr, who is now a respected judge of the Court of Appeal. I saw the submissions that Ms Orr filed on behalf of the state of Victoria and the Victorian Attorney-General claiming that these laws were valid – notwithstanding section 109 of the constitution that makes really clear that where Commonwealth and state laws conflict the Commonwealth laws prevail to the extent of any inconsistency.

When push came to shove, do you know what this brave government did – this brave government that initiated these 94 charges for wage theft? The government withdrew every single one of those charges. It walked away from them. Do you know why? Because this government knew it was cooked – it was absolutely cooked. Rather than face the embarrassment of having the High Court of Australia strike down their laws as unconstitutional, the government wimped it; the government turned tail and ran and withdrew the charges to be able to say to the High Court that there is no ongoing dispute because all the charges have been withdrawn. That shows you the courage of this government’s convictions. When it comes to trying to protect workers from wage theft, they would rather save their own skins and try and hide their own embarrassment from having their laws struck down as unconstitutional than defending the rights of workers. For all the cant we hear from members opposite, we know that when push comes to shove, they are far more interested in protecting their own reputations than they are in actually protecting workers rights. With those 94 charges withdrawn, the whole case collapsed. Now we see the denouement; we see those laws being abolished in this bill.

As my colleague the member for Eildon pointed out, if the government wants to crack down on nasty employers who practise wage theft, they can start by looking in the mirror. The member for Eildon referred to the article in the Age from 14 March this year: ‘Doctors win $175 million in overtime claim’. Our doctors are some of the most hardworking people in our public sector. Our doctors do God’s work. They often work incredibly long hours in incredibly trying circumstances. I put on record my thanks not just to our doctors but to our nurses and to all our medical staff for all the work that they do.

As the Good Book says, ‘The labourer is worthy of their hire.’ Why does this government think that it can get away with underpaying junior doctors and not paying their overtime properly? What happened in the end is that up to 15,000 staff who worked across 36 Victorian health services between January 2015 and March 2025 were going to benefit from being paid the money they were ripped off by this government. I note that entire 10-year period covers the entire Labor government’s period. This is a government that ripped off junior doctors to the tune of $175 million. Why wasn’t the Minister for Health brought up on wage theft charges? Does wage theft only apply in the private sector? Apparently health ministers can rip off junior doctors as much as they like, and that is okay. But if you are a restaurant in Macedon, you get 94 criminal charges, until it is inconvenient for the government to have them proceed, and then they get withdrawn as well.

It is not the first time that the High Court has given this government a black eye. We all remember the former Treasurer Mr Pallas, who very cleverly thought that he was going to be able to impose a tax on electric vehicles, notwithstanding all the advice that anybody who had ever read a constitution would have given him that in fact if you try and charge a tax on something based on distance travelled that is an excise. Any law student will know that an excise can only be levied by the Commonwealth Parliament, not by a state. Sure enough, the government implemented this regime of the EV tax, put this new tax in place and charged a whole lot of Victorians who had electric vehicles this new tax – only, and inevitably, to have it struck down by the High Court as unconstitutional. This government has got form when it comes to making political statements, putting them into law and then getting a reality check by the High Court. They have done it with wage theft laws, they have done it with electric vehicle taxes, and I do wonder what is going to happen with the government’s recent pronouncement about working from home. I do wonder what constitutional head of power the government intends to rely upon to once again wade into the industrial relations field, which the government has clearly given to the Commonwealth, but I do not think this government cares about the detail. I think they care more about generating a headline and being seen to try to do the right thing, regardless of whether it is legal or not and regardless of whether it is constitutional or not.

This bill is actually a very sad sight in a way, because I think the government spent over $30 million on this Wage Inspectorate Victoria, which I think has recovered somewhere around maybe $2 million or something like that; it certainly has not been a very good investment in terms of taxpayers. It has undertaken work which was unconstitutional, and the government is now having to admit that with the repeal of the wage theft laws. It is not as though this government is doing so well on its basic functions that it can afford to be getting into new areas of activity and getting involved there. We certainly do not oppose the bill, but this bill is a very sad indictment of a government where, once again, its ambition exceeds its abilities.

Luba GRIGOROVITCH (Kororoit) (16:02): It was in 2017, when I was the secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union and also a very proud member of the Victorian Trades Hall Council executive, when I first heard the official term ‘wage theft’. Trades Hall had launched its campaign to criminalise wage theft, and I remember at the time reflecting on a job which I had when I was younger. It was my first job, in my teen years, being 14. I was working in a family-run fast-food business that was close to my home. I could walk there after school. I was absolutely tickled pink that I was employed, that I could help mum out financially with the bills and that I had my own authority. I was rapt, over the moon, to have a job. My boss paid me a whopping $7 cash per hour, and I thought that was great. Thankfully, though, my brother worked at Bunnings and he was on an enterprise agreement on the award wage. I very quickly learned that $7 cash an hour was not that much. I sought help, and I ended up joining a union. They tried to help me, but unfortunately, being a casual, it just meant one thing: I stopped getting shifts. I very quickly learned at that time that there was not a great deal we could do.

It was that one example of being a vulnerable young person that actually made me realise how important eradicating wage theft is and how often young people get taken advantage of. Then we were in 2017, and I was reflecting back on those times when I was 14 years old being taken advantage of. Whilst sitting in that executive room at the Trades Hall executive I agreed with the secretary Luke Hilakari that we needed to do something, as did the entire executive. At the end of the day the only people who benefit from wage theft are the employers and the big bosses, and that is completely unacceptable. I am very proud that the Labor Party, our party, not only here in Victoria but also nationwide, is committed to utterly eradicating wage theft and to stopping ripping people off, because that is what it is – it is ripping people off. It is paying them unjustly to make sure that they end up with extra money in their pockets. The relationship between bosses and workers is basically, unfortunately, often one to exploit the worker by the boss, and that is the root of the problem, but every worker should be entitled to a fair day’s pay which they and their family can live on.

This is what the labour movement has always fought for proudly; it should be the bare minimum. Wage theft is completely unacceptable, and bosses who steal – and I will say that, who steal – from workers’ wages or who pay them below the award or minimum wage are absolutely disgraceful and should be charged appropriately. I know some previous speakers have talked about a misunderstanding or the fact that innocent bosses did not realise they were doing the wrong thing so therefore put themselves forward and said, ‘Have we done the wrong thing?’ Well, you had done the wrong thing, you had not paid your employees properly and therefore you should be prosecuted. For so many working people, the wage that they are entitled to earn makes up the difference between being able to afford the groceries, being able to afford rent, being able to afford the mortgage and being able to send their kids to school. Wage theft is not okay; it is, as I said before, unacceptable. Any boss who does it does not deserve to be in business, yet for so many predatory employers in Victoria wage theft has simply become the business model. ‘How can they get away with it?’ is too often the question – again, unacceptable. It is why the Andrews Labor government legislated the Wage Theft Act 2020, which has made wage theft a criminal offence in our state. Wage theft, as we all know, is punishable by up to $1 million in fines for companies or up to 10 years jail or $200,000 for individuals. It is why the Andrews government founded the Wage Inspectorate Victoria four years ago, and it is why the Albanese government has followed Victoria’s precedent and legislated to criminalise wage theft across Australia. That is why from today Victoria is passing the baton to the Commonwealth to guard against wage theft.

This bill repeals Victoria’s wage theft offences and associated record-keeping offences in line with the Commonwealth introducing similar offences intended to cover the field and which make our offences inoperative. Victoria’s Wage Theft Act was the first of its kind in Australia, introducing criminal penalties for wage theft – the deliberate and dishonest underpayment of wages. It influenced a federal commitment in the space, and so the Albanese Labor government amended the Fair Work Act 2009 through the Closing Loopholes legislation to introduce federal wage theft offences following Victoria’s lead. The Victorian Labor government announced its intention to repeal Victoria’s wage theft laws on 14 December 2023, following passage of the Commonwealth bill. The commencement of the Commonwealth offences on 1 January this year has meant that Victoria’s offences are largely inoperable. There was no opposition from unions or industry.

Victoria’s wage theft laws were investigated and enforced by the Wage Inspectorate Victoria, an independent statutory authority established under section 19 of the act. The bill retains the inspectorate as an independent statutory body with ongoing responsibility for administrating Victoria’s child employment, long service leave and owner-driver forestry contractor laws. However, the repeal of wage theft offences means that its name no longer aligns with its regulatory responsibilities, and it will be renamed Workforce Inspectorate Victoria along with a new name for the act: Workforce Inspectorate Victoria Act 2020. In July 2024 the Victorian government commissioned the Wilson review. The final report was delivered to government on 29 November last year. The report contained eight recommendations about how the powers of Victorian government bodies can be strengthened to better respond to allegations of criminal and other unlawful behaviours. The recommendations emphasise collective action among employers, agencies and law enforcement to encourage complaints, share information and act on misconduct, as well as highlighting the need for a multifaceted approach involving cultural, regulatory, legal, policy and contractual changes.

The Wage Theft Amendment Bill 2025 will amend the Wage Theft Act 2020. As I said, it will firstly repeal Victoria’s wage theft offences as well as functions and powers connected to the investigation and enforcement of those offences. It will rename the Wage Inspectorate Victoria to the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria as well as rename the act to the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria Act. It will retain the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria as an independent statutory body with ongoing responsibility for the regulation of child employment, long service leave and owner-driver forestry contractors and as a sector regulator under the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005. It will provide a facilitative function for the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria to give advice and information, and it will confer a function on the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria to receive and refer complaints relating to unlawful conduct on Victorian government-funded construction projects.

The bill includes provision for the workforce inspectorate to advise and report to the minister as appropriate on the complaints or matters that it receives or refers. This will allow it to identify trends and emerging issues and provide an evidence base for future reforms if required. The bill will additionally confer a general function on the workforce inspectorate to provide information, education and advice in relation to workplace entitlements if prescribed in regulations. This will allow the workforce inspectorate to provide advice and information on all workplace matters more broadly. The proposed amendment is a facilitative function intended to provide flexibility for the workforce inspectorate in the future to provide a broader advice function if deemed appropriate, without acting beyond its statutory remit.

I would like to give a shout-out to the mighty Victorian trade union movement and to Trades Hall Council for their tireless campaigning over many years to criminalise wage theft. It was in 2017, when I was at the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, that Luke Hilakari, to his credit, raised this, at that time a foreign concept. These days it is not. I am really proud that so many young people, who are often vulnerable, know what wage theft is and will not stand for it in their workplace. Thanks to Trades Hall and to the union movement, so many young people are protected and more people are speaking about wage theft. So much of the movement’s work here in Victoria has also been made nationwide reform, and that is thanks to the Albanese government.

To all the rank and file of the Victorian labour movement, I can confidently say that this Labor government’s works and reforms simply would not have happened without your advocacy and your hard work. Eradicating wage theft is still very far from mission accomplished. It is something that we are going to need to continue to work on. Employers need to know that they are being watched and that they cannot continue to have wage theft in their companies.

John PESUTTO (Hawthorn) (16:12): I rise to speak on the Wage Theft Amendment Bill 2025. We will not be opposing this bill. But the first point I want to take the opportunity to make is that it is sensible, isn’t it, that if the Commonwealth government has constitutional jurisdiction to regulate matters of workplace relations, it would be fitting and proper for a state government to defer to that? It is appropriate in our view that because the federal government has intervened in this space and covered the field, as the constitutional term is known, this state government should recognise that it should not maintain a duplicate system. Isn’t that a sound principle? If a government says it is committed to reducing red tape and unnecessary compliance, it would be fitting and appropriate if this state government hewed to that principle in the future and did not create two workplace relations systems, because as we know, beginning with the Kennett government and succeeded by the Bracks, Brumby, Baillieu, Napthine, Andrews and now Allan governments, Victoria deferred its system to the Commonwealth, and that was to provide for greater simplicity for workplaces.

I wanted to make that point at the outset, but I want to address a broader point, because I have heard members on the other side of the house talk about their commitment to workers as if they are the only ones who care. Let me go through the record. I do not doubt the motives of those on the other side. On this side of the house there are those of us who have spent much of our lives working as employees. We have brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who work as employees. Of course we all want people to work in workplaces that are safe, workplaces that see healthy wages and wages that grow over time. But what does the record say about the performance of those opposite when it comes to looking after workers? What does it actually say?

I begin with the Wilson review, which came as a panicked reaction by the Allan Labor government to disturbing allegations of corruption, blackmail, violence and intimidation in the construction sector at the hands of an unmitigated and untrammelled CFMEU, which to this day continues to operate largely without inhibitions. And what did this government do in the face of those allegations to protect workers? Well, it failed them. It failed workers. It failed workers, because the review by Mr Greg Wilson, who personally I respect, was a whitewash. It was not a serious review into reforming the construction sector. There was no investigation of criminal activity. Indeed that was explicitly excluded from the review. The review excluded hearings; witnesses could not attend and tell their story, speak their truth, in the face of all the intimidation which we all know happened and continues to happen. We know that there was a suicide on at least one occasion caused by disreputable conduct by the CFMEU. We know that legitimate firms, including Indigenous firms, were booted off taxpayer-funded projects because the CFMEU did not approve. So what did this government do? It commissioned a review which studiously avoided looking at the very problems that exist and expose workers to harm.

So can it be said on that basis that the government is for workers? No. It is not for workers. The government says it is for higher wages. Well, let us look at the record. After more than 10 years in office are workers better off in terms of wages growth under this government? No. Evidence? Well, you could go to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It released some figures yesterday – the wage price index and the growth in real wages in Victoria. It might interest members to know that in Victoria real wage growth is lower than the national average. Workers in this state under this government are earning less than their counterparts in New South Wales and Queensland and other states as well. The territories and smaller states struggle, but in terms of the major states we are performing poorly compared to them. So when this government says it looks after workers – not that much. Real wage growth is slower here than in the other states certainly along the eastern seaboard.

Unemployment: there are more workers unemployed under this government than anywhere else in the country. Today the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the July figures, and they show that despite a fall in seasonally adjusted unemployment, Victoria’s unemployment rate in similar terms remains stubbornly fixed at 4.6 per cent. The national figure went down in July to 4.2 per cent. So can it be said this government is for the workers? We have seen when it comes to violence in the CFMEU, no. When it comes to real wage growth in Victoria under this government, no. When it comes to unemployment and the number of jobless people in our great state, no. This government is not for workers, it seems, even if their hearts, like ours, are in the right place. I do not doubt their motives, but they are certainly not delivering for workers.

We have seen in its August Statement on Monetary Policy the Reserve Bank give us a concerning prediction that productivity will continue to slump in this country. We see a government that is not committed to boosting productivity, and productivity is the key. It might not be the most exciting word in the lexicon, but productivity is important, the member for Mordialloc might know, because if you have a higher rate of productivity, that means more jobs and lower interest rates. That is what it means ‍– more jobs and lower interest rates. Instead we persist, because we have low rates of productivity growth, with this terrible trade-off which sees the Reserve Bank having to look at increasing interest rates when unemployment falls. We do not want that. We want both low unemployment and high jobs growth, but we are not getting that. We saw the ACTU come out with a bizarre policy – and I know many of those opposite are members of or fellow travellers with the ACTU ‍– that says, ‘We’re going to boost productivity by working four days instead of five days as a standard week.’ I do not know how that works out. It simply does not.

As for Prime Minister Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers, I think in terms of their roundtable next week, it is a missed opportunity to include the performance of state governments in how we boost productivity in this country, because this government, the Allan Labor government, made a commitment last year in its growth statement. It said it would reduce the number of regulators as one example of boosting productivity and reducing red tape. It said it would cut the number of regulators by half by 2030. Yet almost every week we see bills come in that do not reduce red tape, do not reduce compliance, do not speak about boosting investment in our state, but add another layer of regulation to the way investment is supposed to occur in this country. If we are serious, if we want to match what clearly is a hungry outlook from the Labor Premier in South Australia, the Labor Premier in New South Wales and the new Liberal Premier in Queensland, who look at Victoria and, as some members opposite may not know, actually contact employers in this state. I was told on a number of occasions by business leaders in this state that they personally received phone calls from Premier Peter Malinauskas in South Australia, inviting them to invest in South Australia. Why? Because they see Victoria as a soft touch and as a place where it is getting harder and harder to invest.

As I said at the start, I think we are all committed to seeing workers in this state enjoy safety when they go to work and higher wages when they finish their work. We all want that for workers. But when you look at the record after more than 10 years of this Allan Labor government – when you look at the data, wages growth, unemployment, productivity, a complete absence of a real and lasting response to CFMEU violence and intimidation – the question all Victorians should be asking is: are we as workers better off? Are we doing better? Is the outlook more confident? I would say it is not, with the highest unemployment, the lowest wages growth. We need to do better in this state.

John LISTER (Werribee) (16:22): I thank the learned member for Hawthorn for his op ed on the economics and productivity discussions that are happening at the moment in Canberra. It was certainly interesting to listen to. I think when considering that this is the wage theft amendment bill on legislation that was led by Victoria in 2020, he did take us on a little bit of a reflection of what has happened since, particularly with pesky section 109 of the constitution and the history of that since that challenge and the new federal laws. I would like to also reflect on the origins of the original legislation in 2020 as part of my contribution.

I am proud that in 2020 Victoria led our nation to criminalise wage theft. The Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison Liberal–National shambles of a federal government would never have fixed this. In fact this same government dumped wage theft penalty clauses in legislation they tried to introduce in 2021, under pressure from ultraconservatives it had to bargain with in the Senate. It is a shame. And it is fantastic to now have that partner in Canberra who also takes the issue of workers rights seriously, not just the interests of those minority groups in the Senate. I do thank the learned member for Hawthorn for his reflection. But I think in reflecting on the origin of this bill, the original legislation and the purpose of it, it was because there was a vacuum in Canberra when it came to industrial relations legislation. We had young people and other vulnerable people here in Victoria who were being exploited by employers – deliberately exploited by employers. We had to act, and that is what we did. It is fantastic to have that partner now in Canberra.

I am proud to represent one of the youngest communities in the state. So many young people in my electorate and the wider Wyndham LGA are entering the workforce for the first time. The first steps into working life usually involve doing odd jobs here and there, and something I am sure many of us in this chamber have done in our mid to late teenage years. I used to deliver papers, and I would drive delivery trucks around Melbourne when I got my truck licence, going to mansions in Toorak and Kew and places like that to deliver furniture. It was a very interesting experience for a kid from the suburbs. Legislation that was introduced recently by the federal government means that those Victorian laws, those pioneering laws, and the bodies like the Wage Inspectorate Victoria, need to be retooled to serve a broader purpose and continue to help our younger Victorians and our vulnerable Victorians when it comes to making sure that they get those rights.

In reflecting on my community and what this means for my community, in the area of Werribee we have a lot of agricultural workers, particularly from the Pacific Islands. We have seen reports throughout the years of the systematic exploitation of these workers. We have made really good steps as a state, as well as in some circumstances with action from the federal government, to make sure that these workers’ rights are protected. It should not matter if you are a citizen or not: if you are one of our Pacific neighbours, you should be protected. I was honoured the other week to meet with some of those workers from our Pacific Island nations, and with some of the people who are there to support them, to talk about the issues of modern-day slavery that they are facing and issues around housing and exploitation that still exist across our agricultural sector. It is good to see a lot of our farming businesses in Werribee South taking bolder steps to try and make sure that their workers are being looked after.

I welcome the positive changes that have come from this, but I think this goes to why we continue to need to have to adapt these laws and make sure that they are meeting what they need to do. Literally not that long ago I was part of the career transitions team at the secondary school that I worked at, working with young people as they transitioned into the workforce. I had the honour to work with our school lawyer from Westjustice that we help support through our secondary schools to deliver a series of seminars for year 11 and 12s in the vocational major program all about their rights at work. A part of it was talking about this concept of wage theft. I think it is really important to reflect on this, because this is not just about those headlines that you see. It is about those everyday happenings and making sure people are prepared to stand up for their rights and that they have that support at whatever level of government, whether that is federal, state or local government. We all have a role to play when it comes to protecting workers.

We do welcome that legislation by the federal government. It really does show that Victoria was leading the way and is still leading the way when it comes to protecting these workers. Along those lines we have seen the idea of retooling Wage Inspectorate Victoria. We are renaming the Wage Inspectorate Victoria to the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria and repealing some of those wage theft offences to standardise them between our state and federal jurisdictions.

With this bill we are also adopting the recommendations of the Wilson report, because we listened to those workers and experts, and our policies will consistently reflect this. I was just looking at the date that the Wilson report was commissioned back in July last year, and I think it is pretty impressive to have such a huge amount of reform come into place in 12 months to make sure that our workplaces, particularly ones that have been funded by the state government, in some cases with the Commonwealth government – and we think it is great having a partner in Canberra for once; it was 10 years of not getting much out of a Liberal government – are protected.

The Workforce Inspectorate Victoria will receive and refer complaints related to public construction across Victoria, including from those working to deliver our Big Build projects, including some of those projects in my electorate like the Ison Road extension, the Wyndham ring-road project and the Ballan Road roundabout removal and upgrade – all really important construction jobs that we have in our community. I would like to reflect that not only do we have quite a significant number of professionals in our community who benefit from things like working from home policies and other nation-leading policies, but we also have a significant number of people in the construction industry in Wyndham that are building all of Victoria. In fact when meeting with some of our construction workers from Wyndham, I was asking, ‘Where do you have to go and work?’ And they were saying, ‘We go all the way down to Frankston. We go all the way across to North East Link to work. We’re working at Footscray Hospital.’ It is important that this bill makes sure that we have that inspectorate that is targeted towards those construction sites that we are putting state money into. We are also providing certainty for the community, businesses and workers and ensuring that correct protections and guardrails are in place for the safety and wellbeing of workers.

I want to return briefly to some of the stories that we heard through that program that we ran with Westjustice. We heard stories of students being told that Saturdays counted as normal working days. We had students being told that after a certain time of night they were just going to get paid the same amount as during the day. Although it was wrong of those employers to suggest that, to their credit at least they were open about it and we could follow it up through Westjustice to make sure that those students were getting what they were entitled to. I think it is a pretty important message for young people who may be watching Parliament – and I know there are not many, but there is certainly a delegation from Wyndham City Council who are here today to observe Parliament and watch how we do these things. For those young people who are listening in and are following this debate, it is important to remember that we have these programs in our schools, including what we do in work-related skills in the vocational major – another thing that this government has developed to support young people wanting to go into a career that is not necessarily university related. In those subjects we follow these things up and we clarify these rights that they have.

This amendment bill also helps to put in place those protections and clarifies that distinction between what the federal government laws will do and what the state needs to continue to do to add to that depth of protections for young people and vulnerable workers across our state. I think it is also important too that it sets a really clear standard to any employer that we will not accept any kind of conduct that puts people at risk of not taking home what they are entitled to. We know times are tough, but that is no reason to exploit the rights of workers. This side works closely with the unions, particularly those unions that operate in my community, like the Australian Services Union and the AMWU as well, that have been working with our council workers and keeping them safe.

Richard RIORDAN (Polwarth) (16:32): I rise this afternoon to contribute to the Wage Theft Amendment Bill 2025. It is fitting this week that the government have chosen to spend an afternoon, with so many crises on, with us discussing a bill that is about repealing a bill that they have had in place since 2020. We are repealing this bill because in its nearly five years of existence it has not actually done anything. It has sat there on the books. It has got in the way of the federal government. Despite the high-and-mighty rhetoric from those opposite for the afternoon talking about the ills of employers, they have completely ignored what modern productive workplaces desire and need, which is great relationships between workers and employers. This government, as we consistently know, refuse to accept that that is where most people are today. They love to continue this 1950s class warfare. Every time they open their mouths they get up there and they want to drill into every last poor practice.

I guess it is ironic that today with this bill we are discussing the merits of something that they never did and never were able to enact and enforce. It is ironic that we are having this conversation because during question time today we had a similar conversation. The government is left with the simple task of running the state, keeping people safe and making sure the law is adhered to, and yet for two days, for example, we have heard that the government cannot even cancel a piece of paperwork. This is a government that on one hand was able to shut down the state and bring laws to bear within a matter of hours – it could keep us all locked in our houses – but it has been completely and utterly incapable of managing a wage theft prosecution or case. More devastatingly for Victorians – for Victorian children and Victorian families – it has been two days and they have not been able to find the delete button on the computer. The simple act of just saying this person –

Michaela Settle: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, on relevance, the speaker on his feet seems to be straying somewhat from the bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Nathan Lambert): I think the speaker was being relevant to the subject matter at hand. I do ask him to keep drawing his remarks back to the bill.

Richard RIORDAN: I am of course talking about the inability of this government to enforce its own legislation. We are now finding ourselves today having government members stand here and wax lyrical about the intent of a piece of legislation that for five years achieved nothing. They had one failed High Court attempt, and they ran scurrying away from the High Court because they could not even get that together. It is a bit like the families of Victoria today going, ‘Look, how difficult is it to press a delete button? How difficult is it for them to withdraw and hold people to account for their behaviours and their actions?’ This government just does not seem capable of it. In fact for two days we have heard that they are going to act rapidly.

I guess this wage theft amendment bill shows us how rapidly they can act. It was first brought to the Parliament quite a few months ago. It is on a piece of legislation that was brought in in 2020 and nothing happened. It just gives an opportunity for the government to, as I said earlier, play its favourite card, which is to create division and stir up animosities in workplaces when really a productive, forward-thinking, progressive government would actually be going, ‘How do we get people continuing to work together to share the benefits of good productivity and share the benefits of growing businesses and companies?’ They do not do that. In fact the only glimmer in this that would actually open up opportunities for more workers in Victoria and provide fairer workplaces is actually for them to take some note of their rather tardy report, the Wilson report, on the CFMEU’s behaviour on worksites.

For those of us that have actually had a real job, unlike many on the other side, who have just sort of wafted their way through in the back offices of Parliament for most of their working life – the member for Mordialloc. Those of us that have actually owned a pair of Blundstones that they put to work, those of us that actually know tradies, those of us that have actually lugged bags of concrete up a hill or those of us that have actually done real work would know that the workforce in Victoria is full of workers who are tired of the blind eye this government turns to the CFMEU worksite – they turn the blind eye to the person that is going about their job as a small business operator. They have got a few employees, and they want to deliver a load of gravel to a worksite, but no, they cannot do that, because they have not paid their union dues: ‘You haven’t been part of the CFMEU. You’re not paying into the coffers of the Labor Party and big unions.’ We do not hear this government ever talk about the protections for those workers. We do not hear this government talk about protections for all manner of people in small and medium enterprises that get locked out of all sorts of job opportunities and business opportunities and work opportunities in Victoria because they do not adhere to the Labor Party and the CFMEU work culture.

This bill that we are talking about today, the wage theft amendment, is a pretty hollow and shallow attempt at regulation and policy here in the state of Victoria. It is disappointing because there are big improvements this government could make that would really benefit workers. Real benefits –

Tim Richardson interjected.

Richard RIORDAN: Absolutely. People can work from home. There is no issue with people working from home, But once again this government wants to regulate it. It wants to tell businesses, it wants to tell workers, ‘You’ve got to do this.’ They are incapable, because, let us face it, I do not think any of them have ever employed anybody. They have never employed anybody. In fact they have only ever been on the teat of the government payroll, so they do not actually understand where money comes from. They do not understand where productivity comes from. They do not realise where and how real workplaces operate. They really do not. They are quite clueless in fact. I mean, the poor old member for Mordialloc over there – if government did not exist, he would have never earned an income in his life. He is probably so incapable of finding a real job that he would have been down at the Centrelink office if he was not working for government.

The opportunity exists. A good government needs to empower both the workers and businesses to work collaboratively together to get the best outcomes, because, guess what, every time government sticks its beak in it, it messes up the relationship. Government needs to be there to help guide and work and assist, not to tell people what to do and not to insist and force practices that just do not work for some people. They talk about flexibility, but it is their union-based flexibility. It is not flexibility for working families, small businesses and others that really are the engine room of this state.

In conclusion, the Liberal Party and the Nationals are not going to be opposing this bill, because there is really not much to oppose in it. The basis of this bill, as we know, was that this was kicked out of the park by the High Court. It did not get anywhere in five years. God knows what bureaucracy they established and the amount of money they wasted on putting in infrastructure purely for the former Premier’s delight in creating a bit more class warfare; that has been the real basis of this government’s modus operandi, to just cause division and hate wherever they can. They did that and they set that up, and now we have got a piece of legislation to unwind it all, fold it all back up and pop it back in the box. This government’s old mate Albo is in charge now, and no doubt he is going to carefully guide workplace relations here in Victoria from his holiday house up on the east coast of New South Wales, his multimillion-dollar clifftop lair that he lives in. He will sit up there like a good chardonnay socialist Labor PM and start directing how we are going to work in our workplaces in Victoria.

I congratulate the Labor Party. There is nothing better than a Labor Party at its best when it rules with hypocrisy. It is marvellous to see. They will get on and do that. We know for sure it is going to be a long time before we see real workplace reform and real fine-tuning around the CFMEU. It is literally billions of dollars that this government has allowed to be siphoned off through poor workplace practices and, at times, high-level and low-level corruption. And, worst of all, it has denied so many Victorians an opportunity to share in some of the infrastructure build that has occurred in this state. With that, we let that bill go through to the keeper.

Daniela DE MARTINO (Monbulk) (16:42): Well, that was indeed quite the performance. I do not even know where to begin; there is so much there that I really do wish to rebut. I will say that the member for Polwarth made a fairly spurious claim that for five years this piece of legislation did nothing. Six hundred investigations were being undertaken – not six, not 60 but 600 – so the member for Polwarth probably needs to check his facts when speaking in this place sometimes. It is very pleasing that the opposition will not be opposing this bill. That is a good start, because it is not generally their default position. I will say, too, there was quite a bit of work going on, but obviously the Commonwealth government has now stepped into this, and thank heavens for that. Do you know why that is a great thing? Because it is not just Victorians who are going to benefit from the initiative that our government brought in; the entire country will benefit from this, and workers know they will be protected from having their wages deliberately taken from them.

The whole premise of the Labor Party, which underpins us to our core, is fair pay for a fair day’s work. That is such an important tenet for the labour movement the world around, and that is what this legislation embodies – or the original legislation, which we are now altering. Thank heavens we have a partner in Canberra who agreed with us, because the former lot certainly did not, and shame on them for that. I can tell you through my former experience as an industrial officer for the SDA, where we had so many members who were young people, that it was those who were not members who were more subject to exploitation. We had employers around the country trying to pay young people with pizza. I am sorry, I do not know the last time that a pizza bought me an item of clothing. It is certainly not a way to pay anyone.

There was some egregious behaviour from workplaces out there – some terrible employers. Do not get me wrong, there are many who employ well. My parents were exceptionally good employers, and I like to think I was as well. All my staff were paid at least the award rate. It is not hard to be a good employer. Be decent, be fair, have integrity and respect your workers, because they are the best asset you will ever have. Invest in them in those ways and they will repay you manifold.

Can I just say not only is it bad for workers when wage theft is involved, it is really bad for the good employers, because when you have an old dodgy cafe in a set of strip shops paying $15 per hour cash in hand – and this is an experience I have lived, because they were in competition with me, and I was paying at the time about $30 equivalent, with on-costs including superannuation and WorkCover premiums – you are not on an even playing field. I was doing the right, decent thing and they were not, so they could charge less for their coffee. The good employers out there want this kind of legislation because it creates a level playing field for them. It is in everyone’s interests that people are paid properly and that it happens.

A further point, actually, for the member for Polwarth, who unfortunately has left. When he said this legislation was doing nothing – and he was in fact incorrect, because as I pointed out to him, 600-plus investigations were being undertaken – the mere existence of legislation can sometimes be enough of a deterrent to make those thinking that they might just try and get away with stealing the wages of a worker think twice about it and maybe not do it, because they know there is legislation there and a body out there looking to investigate and catch them. That is always quite powerful too. I do challenge the position put by the member for Polwarth.

I do want to just touch on something. The member for Hawthorn was talking about productivity before. There was quite a bit of discussion there. I do just want to point out that there was an article not so long ago in the Australian Financial Review that talked about the Productivity Commission’s investigation into productivity. Do you know, one of the things that they have basically said is that a hybrid work-from-home situation is good for productivity for the nation. Well, there you have it. I tell you what, here in Victoria we know what we are on about when it comes to making sure that the situation for all is fair.

Do you know what, I know the Fair Work Act 2009 fairly well, at least in its earlier iteration when I was dealing with it. It is a tome, I tell you, but inherently it is fair. It passes the pub test, and it makes sure that our workplace relations are balanced. There is always more to do, and we now have a Commonwealth government that has come in and gone, ‘You know what, we agree with you, Victoria. Wage theft is a pretty shocking thing. We’re now going to ensure that these laws apply around the country.’ What a wonderful result for all of us. We were leading the way, as the member for Werribee eloquently summarised. We were leading the way at the time in 2020, and we certainly did not have a partner in Canberra at the time. And, once again, thank heavens we do.

I was reflecting on the member for Kororoit’s contribution. She was not just talking about being a union leader and seeing the devastation that wage theft can cause, she experienced it herself – $7 an hour as a young woman in her job. She thought she was going okay. But her brother working at Bunnings under an agreement – my old union there – was getting paid properly, and when she saw what she should have been paid, she realised that she was being exploited. This is endemic in a lot of areas. Young people and people who are on a working holiday visa are more likely to be exploited. If you are not a citizen of this country, you are more likely to be exploited. If you are female, you are more likely to be exploited, or if you have a disability. If an employer considers that you are somehow vulnerable, a bad one – obviously not a good one – will work to exploit that. It is our job as a government, ultimately, to try and protect those who will be exploited, and that is what this does.

Reflecting on the contributions in here today from many of those on my side, it is fundamentally important to us that people are paid properly for the work that they do. And as I mentioned before, being paid in pizza is certainly not a way to ensure – in fact we did have a bit of an example of this, but I will not go into too much detail because I do not want to name any businesses or anything. But we saw it happen as parents to one of our children as well, and it is not ideal. This is a fantastic thing. Once again Victoria led the way in the nation, and what do they say is the best form of flattery? Imitation. It is wonderful that the Commonwealth has decided that that is what they are going to do here.

Obviously this bill is quite technical, and it is repealing the wage theft offences as well as functions and powers connected to the investigation and enforcement of those offences. It is going to rename the Wage Inspectorate Victoria to the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria, and it will rename the act itself to the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria Act 2020. It is interesting, because it will retain the Workforce Inspectorate Victoria as an independent statutory body with ongoing responsibility for regulation of child employment, long service leave – which is still state – and owner-drivers and forestry contractors.

Child employment is an interesting area. When I was at the union I ended up on a working panel for child employment, and it was often children in the media industry or in circuses – so in entertainment ‍– where we saw children being legitimately employed. We were sitting around this table and there had been an amendment put forward for the pattern of hours for children in entertainment. They were trying to make it a little bit more workable for filming – for example, television shows like Neighbours. There were some people around that table, really fascinating people, and one of them was a tutor of young children who worked on television sets. We had noted when we looked at the new pattern of hours they had put forward that there would be an unintended consequence, and you could have ended up having a child employed on a rolling basis, basically working a terrible number of hours. I do not have access to that paper anymore – if I could bring the detail in I would – but they would literally have been able to be continuously employed far beyond what they could at the time. It was unintended ‍– it was just the way it was structured – and when I put that forward to them we worked out we needed to tidy this up and make sure that no child could be employed for as long as this was going to allow for. I said, ‘But it wouldn’t really be an issue, would it?’ I was probably a bit naive. And the tutor of the young children on a television set said, ‘Oh, yes, it could be,’ because there were some parents out there who, if it meant more money coming in, would not care how much that child was working. So it is incredibly important that we have regulation of child employment in this state, because not everyone is going to do the right thing all the time.

Once again, that is the role we have to play as the government. We are there to protect those who could be exploited or who sometimes are exploited. That is why this particular bill is fundamentally important. I am glad, as I said before, that the opposition will not be opposing it, but some of the contributions that have come from over there have been fairly interesting, to say the least, and that is probably me being very, very diplomatic. I do commend this bill to the house. I am quite pleased that this will go through and we will not have to divide on it, which means we will all get out of here a couple of minutes earlier, so that is great. I do thank you for listening to me, and I commend the bill to the house.

Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (16:52): I have got the privilege of having the graveyard shift today and a few people coming in to listen to my exciting contribution.

John Pesutto: Hear, hear.

Annabelle CLEELAND: Thank you, member for Hawthorn, for jumping in earlier as well. I also rise to speak on the Wage Theft Amendment Bill 2025. As we have heard throughout the day, it is a bill that we do not oppose. I am going to try and sift through some of my notes so I am not repeating too much today, Acting Speaker, because I can see that you are starting to get exhausted from your time in the chair. As we know, this legislation is changing the existing Wage Theft Act 2020 in several ways, and this has come about because it is necessary to match the Commonwealth’s new wage theft laws that started on 1 January this year. Skipping through some of the details, I am going to get to the point, because this does actually keep us focused. I will get to the point because it does have an impact on my electorate of Euroa. These changes mean that Victoria’s wage theft offences are now redundant, and removing them will prevent confusion for both workers and businesses.

I want to take the chance quickly to reflect on the member for Werribee’s earlier review of some of what is in the legislation regarding the Wilson review, and while it was a very colourful contribution, he really failed to talk about the number of recommendations that are here, and this is what we are really disappointed in on our side of the house. As we know, the Wilson review came about following the Premier’s comments about wanting to stamp out the rotten culture from the CFMEU. We heard the bombshell reports that expose the criminal activity, the violence and the misogyny on Victorian Big Build sites. So you would imagine that those recommendations are all in here, wouldn’t you? Surprise, surprise: it is a bit light on detail.

The review was set up after the shocking allegations, and we have heard about that – intimidation, coercion, anti-competitive behaviour and a lot of other unlawful activity – and this impacts every single Victorian. Every single Victorian is paying rates and tax and is contributing. It was supposed to be a blueprint for cleaning up the industry, and it handed down eight recommendations – wonderful. Today’s legislation implements just two of those, so this is not reform; this is a distraction. Victorians are still waiting for the rest of the review to be acted on, and that delay is absolutely no accident. We have heard that throughout, and the member for Polwarth had a great contribution regarding what that delay tactic means. Rapid is not rapid in this government; we know that.

From the outset, the Liberals and Nationals have been really, really firm that we just felt the Wilson review did not go far enough. It failed to investigate corruption on state government sites, and we feel that only a royal commission can get to the truth and show Victorians exactly how their money is being spent – and this matters. The Premier, trying to be tough on the issue, was the former minister for the Big Build, the minister who oversaw the massive cost blowouts and the minister who failed to take responsibility for preventing violence, corruption and misogyny on these sites. The government have known about the rotten culture with the CFMEU for years, but it is only because the media exposed it that they are taking any action at all. Even this morning the Age was reporting that the CFMEU hand-picked a man who has now been arrested for an underworld execution, for a lucrative health and safety role on the Big Build sites. I would go as far as saying this is enabling this sort of behaviour to happen. I just think it defies belief that the way we are learning about this is through the media. How is this acceptable? The Premier and her ministers appear to be completely incapable of stamping out the allegations of corruption, of lawlessness, on these Big Build sites, and only a proper inquiry, a proper royal commission, will uncover the full extent of this true rotten culture.

Every Victorian is paying the price for this rotten culture, and I thank people joining this debate and listening to my contribution, because we do have genuine concerns about the financial management of this government. Why does it matter? Every single community is impacted when this government cannot manage money – $1.2 million in interest every single hour, for those that are asleep on the back bench. It is $1.2 million every single hour – boy oh boy, could that buy some things in the Euroa electorate. We are paying the price for this government’s financial mismanagement. Instead of tackling the CFMEU head on, the Allan Labor government want to protect their own jobs, their own political donations and their own allegedly corrupt mates. But Victorians deserve more than these half-measures. They deserve a government prepared to clean up the industry, restore integrity to public projects and put the public interest ahead of union mates and backroom deals.

This is having a regional impact. While debt piles up and Melbourne-based infrastructure projects go from problem to problem, blowout to blowout, regional areas continue to be ignored. I have so many examples of this. Housing initiatives like the Benalla West project – blowouts, delays. Kilmore is unable to secure a public secondary school – one of the largest communities in regional Victoria, without a public secondary school. I thought we were the Education State – only if it is in Labor seats. New childcare facilities in Seymour have been pushed back nearly 10 years after they were initially announced – and that is if they are delivered at all. What is concerning is the health of regional Victorians is now being impacted as well. Vulnerable patients in towns like Benalla, a huge town with nearly 14,000 people – we have no dialysis unit. These are lives that are being impacted by the Allan Labor government’s financial mismanagement, and we are absolutely paying the price with our health. We have got some people paying for their patient transport for their health, and they are not even being reimbursed – hundreds and hundreds of dollars. This is the personal toll of a government that cannot manage money. The bill, as you have heard throughout the day, does not go far enough.

We have concerns with the bill; you have heard them today. I am skipping through. I have got 44 ‍seconds to bring it home. Wage theft is still a concern.

Martin Cameron: Bring it home.

Annabelle CLEELAND: I am going to; you just buckle up. The government cannot manage money, and regional Victorians are paying the price. But I just want to talk about one of the concerns, which is the amount of businesses that are going under because of the weight of the taxes and the financial pressure on this government. We depend on them for jobs – we absolutely need them to survive. Regional Victorians deserve more than these half-baked measures. They need transparency and a government with integrity. We on this side of the house will keep fighting until our workers are protected, our businesses are thriving and every major project is delivered with integrity and accountability, on time and in budget.

The SPEAKER: The time set down for consideration of items on the government business program has arrived, and I am required to interrupt business.

Motion agreed to.

Read second time.

Third reading

Motion agreed to.

Read third time.

The SPEAKER: The bill will now be sent to the Legislative Council and their agreement requested.