Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

That was another demonstration of just how out of touch the government really is on this issue. That contribution takes me back to something I heard Tony Abbott say. It might have been last year or when he was still Prime Minister. He said, 'If you don't want to work on a weekend, fair enough; don't work on a weekend'. And that is just what Senator Reynolds seems to believe. But it is not the case. Lots of people have to work on weekends. My partner, who works in the health area, was delighted when she heard that, because she works a 24-hour, seven-day roster. She would love not to work after hours and not to work on weekends, but she does not get that choice. Many people in our communities do not get that choice. When there are jobs on weekends that people need to live on, people should get a penalty for working weekends, and it does not matter whether they are well paid in organised professions or in hospitality or in other areas where this first tranche of cuts will take place. That argument really demonstrates that the government just do not understand. They think people work on weekends because they want to work on weekends, but it is not the case. I do not know anyone who wants to work on a weekend, and if they had the choice not to work they would take that as an option. People would rather spend time with their kids and their families doing activities that are available on weekends that are not available in the normal course of a working week.

The other argument that government members want to throw at us is that the Fair Work Act was set up by the Labor government, and that is absolutely true. No-one has said that the Fair Work Act is perfect. In fact, we recognised while we were in government that it was not perfect and we actually moved amendments to include in the objectives of the Fair Work Act 'the need to provide additional remuneration for employees working overtime or employees working unsociable, irregular or unpredictable hours or employees working shifts.'

We entrenched in the Fair Work Act objectives the fact that penalty rates had to be there. What the Fair Work Commission did not get—I do not know why they did not get it after we moved those amendments and put in the objectives—is that they could go ahead and cut penalty rates. That is simply wrong. That is not a position of the Labor Party. We are directly opposed to it.

We now know that the Fair Work Commission ignored those objectives as far as we are concerned and the reason behind the intent of putting those objectives in the Fair Work Act. So we intend to legislate to enshrine that penalties are there. If the government wants to support the bill they can. They have a choice just as they have made a choice on many other decisions they have not liked, whether from the Human Rights Commission or the Road Transport Remuneration Tribunal—any of those decisions. If they have not liked them, they simply legislate against them: 'We do not like that decision. We're going to legislate against it.' They have that absolute opportunity. They cannot say simply say because it is an independent body that it is unchallengeable. That is never the position they have taken on anything else. It is a ridiculous argument, it is a fig leaf of an argument and they will not be able to hide behind it. The Australia public will not let then get away with it.

Let's understand what the Fair Work Act actually replaced. Yes, we did put it in place to replace Work Choices. Maybe people need a little bit of a reminder about what Work Choices did to people. Let's just go back and look at what Work Choices did: 100 per cent of AWAs under Work Choices excluded at least one so-called protected award condition, 64 per cent removed leave loadings, 63 per cent removed penalty rates, 52 per cent removed shift-work loadings, 41 per cent did not contain gazetted public holidays, 29 per cent modified rest breaks, 27 per cent modified public-holiday payments, 22 per cent did not provide for any wage increase over the life of the agreement and 16 per cent excluded every award protection and condition from those agreements. I am not surprised that we are headed back there under this government. That is where this government comes from. This is where this government would like to go. Penalty rates are certainly the first step for these workers, and the next step will be every other worker and then the rest of the conditions next. (Time expired)