Construction Industry Portable Paid Long Service Leave Amendment Bill 2025
Second reading
Resumed from 26 June.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas (8:25 pm): Thank you, Acting President. It is obvious that the chamber has not heard enough from me today and desires a little bit more, so back we come.
Hon Dan Caddy: Tell us a story.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I will tell Hon Dan Caddy a story. Let us tell a story about the Builders Labourers Federation because that is where we are in the conversation of the debate tonight. This is an interesting piece of legislation based around long service leave. I am sure it has its history based in the power that the BLF held over the Labor Party for such a long period that it gets special deals out of the Labor Party. I am sure that we are all appreciative that we have now—
Hon Kate Doust: You're the second member tonight who has broken out of the closet, so to speak, aren't you?
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Broken out of the closet?
Hon Tjorn Sibma: Can barely keep him in there! He's popping out all the time.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Hon Kate Doust, that would suggest a change in my lifestyle that probably is not one that I am about to acknowledge or admit tonight, thank you very much. That is a slightly different kind of speech. If I ever come to that speech, I will give Hon Kate Doust advance warning just in case.
Hon Tjorn Sibma: The valedictory!
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Not only have I changed my lifestyle, I am apparently on my way out. Thank you honourable members from both sides for your vote of enthusiasm and confidence in my work. Thank you very much.
Honourable members, the Construction Industry Portable Paid Long Service Leave Amendment Bill 2025 is a set of special circumstances within the construction industry that does not exist in any other industry, which is why I call it the "BLF appreciation bill." We will come to an argument in a little bit about whether work in the construction industry is so much more onerous than any other industry that workers require a special deal or whether the BLF—sorry, is it the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union? Hang on a minute—mining is taking itself out now so it is a little confusing. We get a little bit confused about the acronyms of the unions associated with the Labor Party. The building and mining unions have taken a little bit of a divergence into slightly different directions.
Hon Kate Doust: It sounds like your speech—it diverges.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Well, am I wrong? Is the CFMEU still the CFMEU, Hon Kate Doust? Is there a bit of dissent amongst the unions as we go forward? Is there a bit of unhappiness in the camp or a bit of a factional division going on? Is there a bit of unsettled behaviour? Of course, there is a long history of this before we go back to the conversations about some of the members of the BLF/CFMEU that were around. When I first started my parliamentary career some years ago, there was a member who was quite famous for living a little bit further south just off Canning Highway in the Applecross region, whom Hon Kate Doust might have run across on occasions all those years ago. The history of some of these people is really interesting, but we digress. This is not about history. This is not necessarily about the sordid past of the union control of the Australian Labor Party in Western Australia. We could spend all night on that, but we do not have the opportunity to do so.
Let us look at the basics of the bill before the house. It is absolutely the case that we are dealing with long service leave. Members should be aware that long service leave across the board in Western Australia is covered under the Western Australian Long Service Leave Act 1958, except for the Construction Industry Portable Paid Long Service Leave Act 1985, which is just for the construction industry. Let me remember 1985, because it was a long time ago. Which party might have been in power at that point in 1985 after the Charlie Court era and the David Brand era?
Hon Stephen Dawson: And the Ray O'Connor era.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: That is a whole other story. We might get to that at the end of my contribution, Leader of the House. We were in the Labor era and a special deal was struck for the construction industry in Western Australia. Everybody else is managed under the Western Australian Long Service Leave Act 1948.
Hon Kate Doust: It's 1958.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: I think it is 1958. I have written down 1958; if I am wrong, Hon Kate Doust, I am happy to be corrected.
Hon Kate Doust: You said 1948.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Sorry; did I? I have written down 1958. Under that act, employees are entitled to 8.667 weeks of leave after 10 years of continuous service and then half of that—so, 4.33 weeks of leave—for every subsequent five years of service. That is the Long Service Leave Act, which covers all the other industries in Western Australia. In Western Australia, of course, a worker has to serve for a certain period before they qualify for long service leave. At the moment, and as confirmed by the briefing, which we quite nicely received from the government—thank you very much—a worker must work a minimum of 1,540 days over a seven-year period to qualify for a lump sum of long service leave. That is based on a minimum of 220 hours a year multiplied by seven years. It is fairly simple mathematics. After seven years, a worker in all other industries can qualify for long service leave.
It behoves us a little bit to go into the history of long service leave, because it is not as common an entitlement as members might think. In Australia, we have kind of got used to long service leave. Why do we have long service leave? Where did it come from? Why does it exist? Here is the reality. Long service leave exists because in the late 1800s, most of the administrators in the colonies of Western Australia—penal or not—came from Britain. Long service leave was developed so that the administrators who came to Australia from Britain to administrate could go home and have a decent holiday and then come back. In the late 1800s, of course, there was not much in the way of airflights, so people had to take a ship.
Hon Dan Caddy: Ship?
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Ship—with a "p" for principles, for Hon Klara Andric. People had to take a ship.
Hon Dan Caddy: Were there sheep?
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: If I am going to start doing New Zealand jokes, we are going to be in a bit of trouble tonight. I am only just warming up as we start now! I am glad we are amusing the member. If it is a few weeks to sail back to England and enjoy meeting up with your family, and then take a ship, with a "p"—that is hamster, not guinea pig—back again over a few weeks, sorry, guinea pigs.
Several members interjected.
Hon Dr Steve Thomas: Yes; four drumsticks on every animal, so if we take hamsters—sorry, let us go back. If you take a ship there and back, you have to have a sufficient time to be able to enjoy yourself before you go back. That is why long service leave in Australia was invented. A limited number of countries actually took it up. Canada was one of them, funnily enough—an English colony. It went down the same path. My understanding is that New Zealand, a British colony, also delivered the same thing—that is, long service leave. Across Europe, particularly in the northern and Scandinavian countries that are both highly socialist and very much interested in social welfare, we find that they have picked up some of this. I understand that Finland, for example, has long service leave as well, but it is not actually that common an entitlement because most countries in the world did not have to bring their administrators from England and then send them back for a holiday and bring them back again. That is why we ended up with long service leave. Having said that, it is a very popular entitlement that Australians have got used to. As tempting as it might be to try to insert long service leave for members of Parliament, I think that is probably a step too far but it is a popular entitlement for many parts of the community.
As an employer for a long time before I started a parliamentary career, long service leave is one of the things I had to manage. Long-term employees either suddenly disappeared for three months if they took it or they disappeared for weeks at a time as an entitlement. It is very difficult to explain to a business owner the value and benefit of long service leave. It becomes quite complicated because the business owner obviously does not get long service leave. I suspect that the modern generation, who seem to be much more transportable in their career paths, probably struggle to get to that level of seven years to be entitled to get long service leave. Perhaps this is one of these anachronisms that tends to develop. Traditionally we stayed in one job for a very long period; we did not shift very much. That has changed, but perhaps then long service leave was far more applicable. I think most people consider it a kind of reward for reaching the end of a marathon and perhaps these days, seven years of employment at one particular spot is considered a marathon. It is very popular amongst the community, so I am not suggesting for a minute that the opposition is opposed to long service leave. I just want to acknowledge it for what it is. We are going to allow the legislation to move through without too much protest because it has become a part of the Western Australian psyche and Western Australian employment reach.
There is very little point in taking a massive argument forward on this. However, the bill before the house goes beyond the original components of long service leave to deliver a particular and increased advantage to members of the construction industry. Currently under the legislation that covers the rest of long service leave, the WA Long Service Leave Act 1958, a worker must work a minimum of 1,540 days over a seven-year period to qualify for that lump sum and, for the most part, they do not have the opportunity to pro rata that out early on.
The legislation before the house today changes that specifically for the building industry. I do not know about the old Builders Labourers Federation—my good friend from the BLF is absent on urgent parliamentary business—but maybe the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union minus the "M" bit, which has exited anyway, can give us some more detail as to why a specific exemption would occur for the construction industry. I put that question in the briefing, and I thank Hon Simone McGurk for the briefing. Is it because the construction industry is an industry that involves pretty hard physical labour and therefore additional rest is required? Is it because of the onerous nature of the job? That might be the case. I would probably have a bit more sympathy if I were not just an occasional, keep-my-qualifications-up vet, hobbling around on one leg because that is also a fairly onerous physical occupation. Maybe, were it not for that, I might have a bit more sympathy for the construction industry, because it is a fairly difficult job, and I understand that. But is it really the only onerous physical job that is out there? I would have thought there were plenty of others, particularly mining sector operations, that might be similar. I suspect plenty of others might qualify. This is one of the questions we will ask. I will try to make sure that I put these things in my contribution to the second reading debate so that we might avoid the committee stage of the bill and move forward. I suspect that whatever answers in detail I get during the committee stage will probably not change a recommendation. As I said, as an opposition, we are not disposed to oppose the passage of the bill, but if we could get some answers out of this process, it would be interesting. Why is the construction industry a special case compared with so many others? I think that is the first and possibly singularly most important question we face. What is it about the construction industry that means that it gets a particular deal?
The Construction Industry Portable Paid Long Service Leave Amendment Bill 2025 can be broken up into a number of parts. I will start with the application of portable long service leave. There are a couple of places where this applies. Portable long service leave is being applied in this bill, in the first instance, to construction based on shipping vessels. It is probably a little difficult to argue against this part of the bill. Again, I have a question about why the construction industry gets a special case. It is absolutely true that, prior to 2016 and a particular court case, on-water construction was believed to be captured and was certainly paid under the initial legislation, the Construction Industry Portable Paid Long Service Leave Act 1985.
In 2016 a court case, Thomson v Construction Industry Long Service Leave Payments Board, ended up with a ruling that the process of portable long service leave payments would no longer apply to construction workers operating on vessels. It was a fairly complicated and rather technical process, but the current estimate, according to the briefing, is that probably about 1,000 workers in Western Australia were denied long service leave by the 2016 ruling. They lost their entitlement to their accrued long service leave. At that time it was open to companies to renegotiate with their workers. Some of those companies decided to continue to pay those long service leave entitlements even though it was not legally required. Some of those companies no longer pay those long service leave entitlements and some of those companies decided that they would not only no longer pay those long service leave entitlements but also reclaim the entitlements they had already paid, which perhaps seems a little vindictive, but that is where you ended up. Those things absolutely occurred. We could not get a number or a financial level of the impact. Some employees fell into those three different categories. This legislation effectively provides a legislative and alternative to that court ruling.
Debate adjourned, pursuant to standing orders.
