Senator O'SULLIVAN (Queensland) (17:13): It's always a pleasure to speak on these matters of reference put forward to the chamber by the Labor Party. Unlike the other speakers, I won't concentrate a lot on what the problems are, because I've got a solution. I think we should form—and I'm talking about the penalty rates—an independent commission. That's what we should do. We should form a commission completely independent of government. No government influence or input. Sit this commission way out of arm's reach of government. We'll allow them to make the decisions to meet the national interest tests and the industry tests. They can make the decisions around workers' terms and conditions, particularly around the application of penalty rates. Of course, unfortunately for me, someone else thought of that before I did. The Australian Labor Party formed an independent commission at arm's length from government. There was no interference from government, either their government or the current coalition government. In 2009 the former Labor government put together the Fair Work Commission. That was their solution to this problem. Of course, as is the case with most things, when you've had a change of chairs, from opposition you will criticise the government of the day over these issues even though you were responsible for the architectural framework that was put in place to deal with such matters independently and completely at arm's length from the government. When I realised that this wasn't an original thought, I thought I need to come up with another solution. Of course Labor's solution is to make Prime Minister the Leader of the Opposition in the other place, Mr Shorten. Surely to God he'll look after the workers. Surely to God he'll make sure that penalty rates and terms and conditions are looked after. I thought I didn't capture it with my first thought, but I've captured it with my second. Surely having Mr Shorten put in charge of terms and conditions for workers, particularly around penalty rates, will get bipartisan support. Alas, when I raised that with my staff and advisers, they said: 'Hold on a minute, big feller. There's a problem with that too.' I said, 'What's the problem with that?' They said that the last time Bill Shorten was in charge of things like enterprise bargaining agreements—and Labor senators who take an interest in this should google 'Bill Shorten 1998 enterprise bargaining agreement'— Senator Molan: AWU. Senator O'SULLIVAN: 'AWU'—it cost 5,000 workers more than $400 million in lost wages over a decade. I should sit down now. I've put forward two solutions. Both of them I imagine would be unacceptable to the Australian Labor Party. Of course, the burn on this is that the Australian Labor Party of my father's generation and of my youth was interested in workers. They were the ones who were interested in workers. They were the workers' party. I have said here before—and it's worth repeating—that my dear old dad was a devotee of the Labor Party. I have said before that he would punch his hand through his coffin lid tomorrow and mark their box, irrespective of who the candidate was. That was his and my mother's lifetime pattern of voting. But they were supporting a different Labor Party. They would not have supported a Labor Party who entered into enterprise bargaining agreements that cost 5,000 workers $400 million in lost wages over a decade. Of course, this conduct by Mr Shorten was repeated with employees of Target and Just Jeans. If you do the maths, the loss to workers through their terms and conditions, particularly around penalty rates, is probably by now in the order of $1 billion. I will go back just to make a point on that. In 1999 the public holiday award rate for a level 1 cleaner was $36.38. That was reduced under that enterprise bargaining agreement to $16.28. They lost a clear $20 an hour. I don't want to reflect on cleaners—I myself have done a bit of that over time—but, if you want to identify a blue-collar worker who is working in not the most appealing job and who is probably lower on the socioeconomic strata than most other blue-collar workers, it would be the cleaners. How do you go to bed as a Labor man after you've reduced their public holiday award rate by $20.10? How does that work? How do you say to the workers, who have looked to that party for decades, 'Stick with us. We're the party of the people. We're the party of the workers, particularly blue collar workers and the like. Stick with us and we'll improve your terms and conditions of employment,' only to reduce them? Let's recap on my two failed ideas. The first was thinking I'd have bipartisan support. The other was to establish a Fair Work Commission, and I must confess my ignorance to that until my staff alerted me to it. There is a Fair Work Commission that was put in place by the Australian Labor Party to be arm's length and to govern such matters. Now we hear in this place constantly their criticism of the independent commission, which they formed, because they're not happy with what's happening there. Now their alternative is, for the Australian people and Australian workers, to give Mr Shorten the top job. He'll fix this for you. He will see, in the blink of an eye, reductions in your wages, and it won't affect his sleeping patterns because he's got a long chronic history of doing just that. Things have improved for workers in this country under this coalition government. I attach myself to some of the remarks of Senator Sterle. He was right about the incidents that we've talked about, and there's no question in my mind that there are issues around our 457 visa system that need to be tidied up, particularly in circumstances that he related. And there is exploitation of some workers under this system in agricultural industries, where the brokers who present them as a workforce treat some of them very poorly and, in fact, unlawfully. So I attach myself; I don't walk away from those remarks. I've been very vocal on it up to this point in time. I've made representations to the relevant ministers and I'm satisfied that the efforts that they have underway will eventually mitigate those circumstances. But I've got to tell you: to have the Australian Labor Party come and start to lecture us on terms and conditions for workers in this country, when this government has provided so many more people with a job under Abbott and Turnbull—and I'm sure that will continue under Morrison, to fix an economy that was failing as a result of the legacies of the Australian Labor Party—I find it a bit rich. But I know why it's happening. I said in an earlier contribution today those opposite have got nothing else worthwhile to talk about; otherwise they wouldn't come in here with these subject matters and give us the opportunity to belt them around the ears. They've been done over twice today. It's because they've got no substantive issue that they find the government vulnerable on that we'd find difficult to defend. They've got nothing else to say, and the Australian people who are watching this—I hope they're all having a snooze and not spending their time watching the Senate—need to take note just as we have here today.