As the peak industry body for Queensland horticulture, Growcom has a strong interest in ensuring that legitimate labour hire organisations can continue to provide workers for our growers. While we applaud the State Government's commitment to address unscrupulous labour hire companies, it is disappointing that the recently released draft for the Labour Hire Licensing Bill 2017 has failed to meet expectations.
Growcom supports better oversight of the labour hire industry but remains concerned the Bill does not deal with some key issues. The broad definition of provider and labour hire services as outlined in the bill has resulted in confusion as to what exactly constitutes a labour hire arrangement and what requires a licence.
Growcom has called for better understanding of how and where growers’ information will be used so not to jeopardise their right to privacy. Whilst the need to capture relevant information for the purpose of compliance is important, so is the need to protect growers’ interests.
Furthermore, for labour hire companies to comply with the bill’s requirement for accommodation information, it could mean invasion of the worker’s privacy. It is Growcom’s preference that this requirement covers accommodation arrangements where there is a clear link between the accommodation provider and the labour hire company and where these arrangements could be used as a mechanism to deprive workers of their entitlements.
One of the bill’s provisions allows third parties to apply for a review of a decision to grant or suspend a licence, or revoke a condition of a license. This unusual provision opens the door for malicious applications to potentially slow down licensing of labour hire companies. Again, we have no issue with a strong compliance regime and complaints process but this seems to be handing significant power to unspecified third parties. The state based licence scheme already presents a barrier to entry and the threat of being caught up in an appeals process triggered by a third party presents an unnecessary barrier.
Growcom will continue to push for a consistent national scheme and support the work done by the Recruitment and Consulting Services Association (RCSA) in developing a national accreditation for labour hire companies.