My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Cargoton woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Wednesday, the twenty sixth of July.
I'm Zara Seidler, I'm Sam Kazlowski.
The federal government has announced plans to give eligible casual workers a pathway to permanent employment.
Hundreds of thousands of casual workers across Australia.
Could soon be in line for similar benefits to those in permanent positions. For people who want security, this gives them a way to be able to do it, but.
Not everyone is stoked about the proposal.
There's already a statutory pathway to permanency for casual employees. So what is tony Ber actually trying to do?
Will let you know what the government is trying to achieve and by the opposition and some businesses are opposed to the change. In today's Deep Dive, but first Sam what's making headlines.
Two men have been charged with sexually touching festival goers at Splendor in the Grass. A forty three year old and forty year old were both charged and granted conditional bail. Please said attendee safety at the Byron Bay Festival was their number one priority over the weekend, describing crowds as well behaved.
Overall, fifty percent of Australians are being targeted by scams every week. That's according to new data from consumer group Choice. The survey also found that nine out of ten people have come across at least one suspected scam in the past year. A recent h roable c report revealed that Australians lost three point one billion dollars to scams last year. That was up eighty percent from the year before.
TikTok has announced a new text only post function, as the video stream app looks to compete with Twitter's ex rebrand and Meta's recently launched platform Threads. The app says the new feature will allow users another way to express themselves, with the choice to post photos, videos, or text. We spent our whole episode talking about threads. I'll put the link in today's show notes.
And the good news the government has announced a twenty million dollar boost for Olympic and Paralympic competitors ahead of Paris twenty twenty four Paralympics. Australian President Jock O'Callahan said the boost means Paralympic athletes can direct their focus to training and qualifying for the games, quote, knowing they have the backing of the nation behind them to get them there. Samuel, Yes, what was your first casual job.
It was a summer job working for Waverley Council. How Yeah, I was sixteen.
That's undly you were trying to make it legal.
Yeah, I think I was sixteen. It was handing out condoms for Waverley Council at These and South Beaches in Sydney. Hadn't kissed a girl yet, but was heading out. They came with lollipops as well, Zara, did you hand out any contraceptives when you're a teenager?
Only inflatable for me? Seriously, I was handing out those big flamingos that go in the I don't know. I think they're a bit cheggy now, But there was definitely a time and a place that everybody wanted to take those to any body of water that they had access to.
Those like huge things.
So I don't think either of those two jobs were going to ever lead to permanent jobs for us At that time we were both students at school. But there are a lot of Australian who are working casual jobs, but they're working them with the frequency and the cadence of what would otherwise be a permanent job.
That feels very familiar that kind of model. Yeah, We've both had lots of friends over the years who've done exactly that. Yeah.
And so the government's proposal, and the reason why we're talking about casual work today is that the government is actually proposing that there should be a pathway for those casual employees to become permanent employees. And it's garnered support from the unions, but there's been a fair bit of opposition from the Coalition and also from some industry groups.
So what would the changes actually do.
Well, I think before I go to what the proposed change actually is, I think that we need to just set out who we're talking about. As I said, we're not talking about URI and those examples because we weren't working five days a week in the same job, you know, for months and month exactly. So just over a fifth of all workers in Australia, so that's roughly two point five million people are casual employees. Casuals are most common
in retail, in hospitality, agriculture and the arts industries. But actually a third of casuals work full time hours.
That's higher than I thought it was.
Yeah, So that's the demographic that the government is looking at at the moment, and Employment Minister Tony Burke is saying that this proposal is aimed at closing what he calls a loophole that's leaving people stuck as casuals when they're actually working permanent, regular hours. So to get back to your question, the government's proposed changes would give around eight hundred and fifty thousand eligible workers access to the
same entitlements that permanent employees receive. So when we think about permanent employees, they get annual leave, they get sick leave, they get careers leave, and they also get things like a notice of termination.
Periods, so you can't get told you don't have a job and not be able to come to work the next day.
No, but that's what casual workers face, so they can lose their employment without notice and Employment Minister Tony Burke says that his proposal would actually provide security for casuals who want it.
Your rent's not casual, your bills aren't casual. Paying for the groceries or other members of the household, none of those expenses are casual.
But the proposal is that everyone would be forced to become a permanent employee. Employees would still be able to make that choice.
You've just rattled off all those benefits to what happens if you become a permanent employee, So why would someone remain a casual employee.
Casuals often get an extra pay loading, which can be around twenty five percent, to compensate for their lack of job security and the lack of entitlements that we just spoke about. Although I do think that it is important to say not everyone does get that loading, and especially not that full twenty five percent, and not all casuals
earn more than permanent employees with similar skills. Advocates have actually argued that in some circumstances, despite that loading, some casuals might still overall end up getting paid three to four dollars less per hour than permanent employees with similar skills.
Zara put these changes in a bit of context for me politically, why is the government making this move now?
So, until recently Australia didn't actually have a legal definition of what casual employment actually was, and that changed after there were two recent court cases. And in those court cases, judges ruled that two employees who had consistent work arrangements couldn't actually be considered casual and that they were entitled to paid leave, so they were entitled to the same
thing that a permanent employee would be. So this prompted the former Morrison government to create a legal definition in twenty twenty one, which the Albanezi government claims led to a loophole that means that not enough people are transitioning from casual to permanent employment and that that pathway isn't working as intended.
Okay, So now the government's made this announcement, what's the response been like.
So it's just been announced this week, but I mean, straight off the bat, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, who would naturally have some fair alignment with the Labor Party welcomed the government's plans and said that it'll ensure greater security for casual ACTU Secretary Sally McManus has said in the past that too many casuals are casuals in name only.
Surely, after two years of the pandemic, when we saw essential workers who were classified as casuals doing essential work day in day out, who did not even have sickly, they deserve this.
Okay, what about opposition to the policy, Well.
There's been political opposition and then there has been business or employer opposition. So taking the business opposition first, the Australian Industry Group, which represents employers so not employees, has said that employers will be alarmed at what it called a radical proposal, and it's said that the real risk is that employees will be laid off. The opposition so the Coalition accused the government of deliberately creating significant uncertainty
for both businesses and casual workers. Shadow Employment Minister Michaylia Cash claimed the government's proposal would actually encourage businesses to give casual fewer hours. So she's arguing that it would be the opposite of an incentive for an employer, and that that could lead to the layoff of casual workers. Cash actually told TDA and I quote her here that labor primarily opposes casual work because they find it more
difficult to unionize this workforce. So clearly lots of opposing views on this, and I imagine that it'll come down to the cross bench and where they fall on this issue to see how it progresses through Parliament.
So we reported this story to our audience on Instagram and in the comments section, there was some strong views that were coming through what was kind of the sentiment of the audience the.
Flavor Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that this is definitely one that has our audience divided. I think on the one hand, some people were saying this could help people and casual workers. Someone said quote universities are notorious for the casualization of their more recent staff. But there are also a few comments from casual work who would choose to stay casual. One person said the annual pay is still so low that losing the loading might mean
I couldn't cover rent and bills. I think it's worth repeating that your circumstance will dictate how you think about this policy, because some casuals will get that loading others won't, so it'll be really interesting to see how many people take up this offer from the government if and when it passes through Parliament.
That is all for today's podcast, but if you've got to spare forty seven seconds, we'd love your help getting a little bit of feedback on the ads that you hear in the podcast and the ads and partnerships that we do across the daily os on Instagram and newsletters, and we'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts so we can make this a better experience for you. There's a link in the show notes. Have a great day and we'll speak to you tomorrow.