Queensland Industrial Relations Minister Grace Grace said Australia must take action nationally to protect workers and referred to the success of Queensland’s own labour-hire licencing scheme in stamping out bad actors. The scheme is now in its third year.

So far, the scheme has taken action against 650 labour hire providers over the past three years ranging from cancelling licences to setting conditions on licences, according to Grace.

“We acted three years ago on evidence that showed serious exploitation of workers and deplorable business practices by labour hire providers,” she said. “Our nation-leading scheme continues to protect workers by clamping down on the rogue operators, as well as providing our 3,350 legitimate operators the level playing field they sought.”

Queensland’s labour hire licensing scheme has seen:

• 255 licences suspended for non-compliance
• 83 licences cancelled for non-compliance
• 251 licence applications refused or withdrawn
• 61 licences granted with conditions

In addition, 10 businesses and five company directors have been successfully prosecuted with courts issuing a total of AUD 820,000 (USD 640,174) in fines.

“Before our new laws came in you had to have a licence to sell a car and you had to have a licence to sell a house but not to sell labour,” Grace said.

“Legitimate businesses were sick and tired of being undercut by these dodgy operators and their unlawful practices — they wanted them stomped out, full stop,” she continued. “The only way to put an end to this kind of appalling exploitation was to introduce a proper labour hire regulation scheme.”