Labor has spent years in opposition lamenting the way workers are treated by employers. It railed against wage theft, and took up the fight against what it described as an "epidemic" hitting Australian workplaces.
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Last year, Anthony Albanese and Labor's industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke promised a Labor government would consult with states and territories, unions and employers to develop laws that criminalise wage theft.
"Across Australia a worker who steals from the till is committing a crime - but in most states and territories an employer who steals their workers' wages is not. This is completely unfair," their statement read.
The principle behind all this is that workers should be paid what they are owed, and that workplaces should be fair.
How does this stance sit with the new Labor government's latest decision affecting its own workforce of public servants?
What kind of employer is it shaping up to be, after years slamming the Coalition for undervaluing the public service?
These are questions worth asking after yesterday, when the government announced it was moving to protect itself from the potential fiscal impact of a pending Federal Court decision on public service superannuation. The court will decide whether the Commonwealth owes three Foreign Affairs Department staff superannuation that the public servants say remains unpaid on rent-free accommodation during their overseas postings.
It's been a case long in the works - The Canberra Times was first to report on it in 2019.
The court decision could arrive any day now. When it became clear after its April hearing the court would not make its decision before the election, the matter loomed for whichever party won government. It ended up falling on the desk of new Labor finance (and public service) minister, Katy Gallagher.
The previous government had sounded a warning about the possible fiscal risk posed by the court case as recently as the March budget.
Labor added some detail yesterday, saying a decision in favour of the three Foreign Affairs Department staff could bring on a wider bill for the government of up to $8 billion in superannuation owed to thousands of other public servants.
That is an eye-watering sum, and in a darkening economic and fiscal environment, hardly one the Labor government would easily stomach. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has spent weeks telling Australians what dire shape the books are in. An unpaid superannuation bill reaching into the billions only makes that story harder to tell.
The government has decided to introduce a bill - appearing first in the Senate today - designed to block any liability arising from a Federal Court decision favouring the DFAT workers. We're waiting, at the time of writing, to see the wording of the draft bill. In the mean time, the statement put out by Senator Gallagher yesterday needs scrutiny.
It described the purpose of the proposed legislation in this way: "To ensure that the superannuation entitlements of Commonwealth employees remain as they have been understood, by Commonwealth employees and employers, over a long period."
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The question here is, what if that "common" understanding has been wrong all these years? Isn't that exactly what the Federal Court case will determine? If this means superannuation is owed to public servants, shouldn't they be compensated?
Senator Gallagher's statement also said the court case could mean some public servants receive "significant windfall increases in superannuation benefits that are well beyond community standards (in some cases in the millions of dollars) only because they have received rent-free housing".
The choice of language here is important. "Windfall" that it may be, unpaid superannuation isn't just extra money topping the balances of well-paid public servants. It would be money owed to employees - if the court so decides. Whether they're public servants or not shouldn't be relevant, if they're owed the money. Labor, the self-anointed champions of workers and the public service, should understand that. Its statement yesterday didn't acknowledge these shades of the case.
There must be other avenues available to Labor, one of which it's been more than happy to indulge in over recent weeks: blaming the previous government for the mess, and promising a fair fix.
Labor has chosen its path, and is trying to rush the legislation through. It will probably win support from the Coalition for its bill. While it'll be easy to sell to the broader public unsympathetic to the public service, the government's workforce of bureaucrats will take a dimmer view.