Senator BROCKMAN (Western Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (17:14): It's always a challenge in this place to rise after Senator Rennick—such an enlightening contribution as always. Seeing as we're talking about this matter of public importance, as you well know, Madam Acting Deputy President Kitching, those on the other side love repeating something so many times they think it becomes the truth, but in actual fact it remains as much as a falsehood as when they first began. Is underpayment of wages an issue? Absolutely. The Fair Work Ombudsman and this government have taken remarkable steps in addressing this as an issue. There have been a number of very significant companies in Australia who have been found to have been underpaying wages—large companies with large human resource departments, companies like 7-Eleven, Commonwealth Bank, Qantas, Bunnings and Woolworths. These are large companies with very complex and well-built human resource systems. Is it wage theft? Do we need to use a pejorative term like wage theft? Well, let's see who else is on the list of those who have underpaid wages? The ABC, a large government broadcaster with a significant human resource department behind it, also underpaid millions in wages. Who else? Senator Scarr: Who else? Senator BROCKMAN: Who else, Senator Scarr? Well, I believe Maurice Blackburn. Maurice Blackburn, a law firm that bills itself as the friend of the worker, as the industrial relations experts, as the labour lawyers—and you can write that in two ways and still mean the same thing! Maurice Blackburn was found to have underpaid wages for hundreds of its junior employees. I don't cast stones. I don't call it wage theft. I say maybe we've got a systemic problem. Maybe we've got a problem where our awards system is actually so complex that the largest most sophisticated human resource systems in Australia cannot get it right. And we expect small businesses to, where the human resource department is one person—it's the husband or the wife, the brother or the sister. It's the employer who's handling three different parts of the business. They're not departments; they're individuals. They're individuals struggling to keep up with a system that is extraordinarily complex. Are companies that do the wrong thing a target for this government? Absolutely. This government is actively working to strengthen protections for employees, to strengthen criminal offences for dishonest and systematic underpayments of one or more employees. We're increasing penalties—four years imprisonment in fact. That is a pretty significant penalty in anyone's book, with $1.11 million worth of fines—again, a very significant penalty in anyone's book. We're increasing the maximum civil penalties for underpayment. We're introducing new prohibitions to stop employers advertising jobs with pay rates below national minimum wages and clarifying that the courts can make adverse publicity orders where appropriate. But Labor are not going to support this. Why? They might say, 'Oh, it doesn't go far enough.' Fine. They need to mollify their union mates. That's all well and good. But these changes directly impact the wellbeing of employers across Australia in a system that is undoubtedly overly complex. Again, I ask all senators to think about those mums and dads, those small-business owners, those single employees who have to operate in this environment, an environment of extraordinary complexity, an environment where the likes of Maurice Blackburn, the labour lawyers, cannot get this right. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Kitching ): The time for the discussion has expired.