Page 590 - Week 02 - Thursday, 20 February 2020
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First, any labour hire provider operating in the ACT, including providers based interstate but providing workers to the territory, will be required to hold a valid labour hire licence. For the purposes of this bill, a provider is defined as a person or business that supplies a worker to do work for another person or business. By incorporating a broad definition of labour hire provider into the bill, we are making sure that the scheme is able to respond to the changing nature of work in the territory. A broad coverage will universally apply to the labour hire industry operating in the ACT and not just a select few sectors. To limit this scheme, particularly in the ACT, would undermine its effectiveness. This scheme is about ensuring that our businesses and the corporate structures they choose to adopt do not adversely impact our workers.
Another key component of the Labour Hire Licensing Bill is to ensure that there are appropriate penalties in place to discourage unlicensed labour hire providers from operating. A publicly available register will be created and maintained by the government to ensure that businesses and individuals using labour hire providers are easily able to ascertain who is a licensed provider.
For too long, ethical labour hire operators have been undercut by providers who are too willing to exploit workers in order to make money. We are ending this practice in the territory with this bill, and there will be strong disincentives, with a maximum penalty of 800 units for an individual and 3,000 units for a corporation, for providing labour hire services without a licence. In addition, a civil penalty will apply to users of unlicensed labour hire service providers.
In a regulatory scheme, this recognises the balance between obligations on labour hire providers to maintain a licence and market pressures that, if left unattended, are likely to continue to support unlicensed labour hire practices. However, it is clear that this approach, in applying a financial disincentive to engaging unlicensed labour hire, must be appropriate and must be justified.
That is why we have included safeguards within the bill. Specifically, users that have a reasonable excuse for engaging unlicensed labour hire services will not be subject to the civil penalty. For example, in circumstances where an individual might engage someone to carry out personal or domestic work, such as cleaning their residential home, it is reasonable to expect that they may not be aware that they have engaged a labour hire worker.
It is incumbent on government, providers and recipients of labour hire to step up together to ensure that vulnerable workers are protected. This government is rightly proud of our history in doing this, and we are confident that hardworking, reputable territory businesses will step up too.
In addition to the requirement to hold a licence, and the requirement to use a licensed provider, there will be a “suitable person” test in order to assess the likelihood that a particular business will comply with relevant laws and will treat its workers fairly. The bill includes provisions that would be applied to all applicants—whether an individual or an executive officer of a corporation—which will consider whether the applicant for a labour hire licence is honest, is professional, and has integrity when it
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