Prime Minister Scott Morrison has cooked up a storm over wage theft as he likened the actions of disgraced celebrity chef George Calombaris to worker exploitation by unions.
Calombaris was last week fined $200,000 for ripping off his restaurant staff by almost $8 million.
Mr Morrison said Attorney-General Christian Porter - who had earlier described that penalty as "light" - is drafting laws to deal with criminalising worker exploitation.
"On top of that, there are bills in the parliament right now that deal with the wage theft that's occurring in the union movement through workers' entitlement funds," Mr Morrison told parliament to uproar from the opposition benches.
Earlier, ACTU president Michelle O'Neill said Calombaris would have earned more money on the interest he stole from people than the amount he was fined.
"They didn't prosecute the company, they instead did a sweetheart deal where all they had to do was of course promise to pay the money back," she told Sky News.
"We have a weak regulator controlled by this government that didn't prosecute someone at a company that stole millions of dollars and the government wants you to think there is a problem with unions."
Labor leader Anthony Albanese told parliament that ripping off restaurant workers was an issue of great concern to the community.
Mr Porter reminded parliament the government provided $10.8 million to the Fair Work Ombudsman in the April budget to investigate these types of issues.
"Our government has a zero tolerance for this sort of behaviour, whether that is underpayment or wage theft," he said.
"When Labor were last in office they cut the funding of the Fair Work Ombudsman by 17 per cent."
Calombaris and his two MasterChef co-hosts Matt Preston and Gary Mehigan have walked away from the reality cooking show after pay negotiations fell through.
Network Ten had been under immense pressure to sack Calombaris as a judge on the show after his MAdE Establishment group was fined.
Network Ten chief executive Paul Anderson denied the MasterChef announcement was linked to Calombaris' troubles, saying the network had been in negotiations with the trio for months.
"The reality is that we couldn't meet the demands of the three judges," he told Ten News.
The trio had reportedly demanded a pay rise of more than 40 per cent to stay.
They were judges on the show for 11 seasons and made their last appearance on Tuesday night's 2019 season finale.
New judges will be introduced in next year's season.
In a post on Instagram on Tuesday night, Mehigan denied their departure was motivated by finances.
"It was time to move on, have more free time to explore our own creativity," he said.
"It was never about the money and never will be about the money."
Australian Associated Press
