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A top union has warned Australians their tax time phone calls to tax office employees are being directed to lower-paid workers at outsourced call centres.

The Australian Taxation Office is set to face landmark “same job, same pay” hearings in the coming month, with a call centre worker saying his outsource colleagues were paid up to 40% less than their public service counterparts .

The Community and Public Sector Union has today lodged reply submissions supporting the Fair Work Commision case. In a statement, it said outsource workers were answering the same calls as ATO employees, with the same systems, equipment, policies and procedures. The union said they should therefore have the same pay and employment conditions.

The CPSU said it submitted outsource labour hire companies were wrongly claiming they provided a specialised service and value for money. It described answering calls as “core ATO work” that should be brought back into the public service.

Melissa Donnelly , the CPSU’s national secretary, called on the Albanese government to direct the ATO to bring the call centre work in-house. She said:

double quotation mark These outsourced call centre workers are doing the same job as their ATO counterparts, but with worse pay and conditions. . …

Right now, millions of Australians are doing their taxes. They need to know they are talking to fully trained and trusted public sector employees – not outsourced workers being underpaid by profit-driven firms.