Employer split: pubs giant backs casual changes

The owner of Dan Murphy’s and BWS praised the government for hearing industry concerns.

Liquor chain and pubs giant ­Endeavour Group has backed the federal government’s casual ­employment amendments, praising the government for hearing ­employer concerns.

Liquor chain and pubs giant ­Endeavour Group has backed the federal government’s casual ­employment amendments as Tony Burke accuses employers opposing Labor’s industrial relations changes of being solely ­motivated by a desire to keep wages low.

Steve Donohue, chief executive of Endeavour Group, the owner of Dan Murphy’s, BWS, 354 pubs and more than 12,500 gaming machines, praised the government for hearing ­employer concerns.

“Left unamended, the proposed changes for casuals would have had a significantly adverse effect on our team members and our business,” he said. “It’s to the government’s credit that they listened to the industry’s concerns as they relate to casuals and we will continue to take part in the consultation process.”

The Endeavour Group is the owner of Dan Murphy’s, BWS, 354 pubs and more than 12,500 gaming machines. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Steven Saphore

Endeavour Group is a member of the Australian Hotels ­Association which negotiated the casual employment amendments with Mr Burke, the Workplace Relations Minister, prompting rival business groups to attack them. But Mr Burke said the employer groups had ­“decided that they need to ­oppose the bill in its entirety and part of that is to argue doom and gloom at every corner, even if it doesn’t match the facts”.

Mr Burke hit back at BHP over its claim that the government’s labour hire changes could cost the mining giant more than $1.3bn a year. “When I see the $1.3bn figure from BHP, I find it hard to believe that they are ­underpaying their staff by that much,” he said.

“Some of the things that they’ve done in those figures at different points has been to ­include all service contractors. At other points, they have presumed that everybody would go to the highest rate of pay within a relevant agreement.

“The concept here is just really simple: if you’ve agreed to rates of pay in an enterprise agreement then that’s what should apply to your workplace. It’s not more complicated than that.”

He said the proposed labour hire amendments would deliver on the government’s commitment that service contractors would be excluded.

“I am completely confident we are going to be able to exclude service contractors. I am also completely confident that once we do that the organisations that have been running the campaign against the bill will just move to the next issue and will also say in some way we haven’t fixed it,” he said. “Because ultimately what some of these organisations are wanting to do has nothing to do with the arguments they are raising publicly, it’s simply about them trying to do the work for their members so that the wages bill is lower.”

Senate crossbenchers will move next week to split the Closing Loopholes Bill but Mr Burke said he government remained opposed and wanted the bill passed in its entirety.

The Greens and Senator David Pocock are pressing for the criminalisation of wage theft to be extended to superannuation, saying the toughening of enforcement provisions was the best way to ­address an estimated $3.3bn in super theft each year.

Senator Pocock said if the government was serious about closing loopholes then the intentional non-payment of super should also be criminalised.

Asked if the government was open to considering criminalising super theft, Mr Burke said that would be a “reasonable characterisation”.