Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great pity that the Prime Minister is not in the chamber to defend the policies which have wreaked havoc on ordinary working people and the policies which are in breach of commitments that the Prime Minister has made. It is a pity he is not here, because I want to refer to some of those commitments that are on the public record. I quote from the transcript of an interview with the Prime Minister on the Alan Jones show back in August last year. It is true that this interview occurred before the details of the legislation were introduced, but there is no doubt in my mind—and there should not be any doubt in the minds of the members opposite—about what the words mean. The Prime Minister often claims that his word is his bond; let us listen to what he said. In answer to a question from Alan Jones about whether overtime was going to be absorbed into ordinary rates of pay, he said:

... this Government is not going to introduce any policy that is going to result in a cut in the take-home pay or living standards of the Australian workforce.

Mr Jones said:

My point to you is this, and I’m trusting you understand this, that if that overtime were to become ordinary time, take-home pay could fall dramatically.

The Prime Minister answered:

But I think people should wait until the legislation comes out. I think people should wait until the legislation is in operation and they will find that so many of these allegations are wrong.

Mr Jones then went on to talk about the impact of individual contracts. He said:

Now they are saying, the critics, the conditions therefore of the five—

minimum standards—

don’t include public holidays or meal breaks, so they are going to be negotiable. One union says the changes would make working on public holidays and through lunchbreaks open to bargaining between workers and bosses.

What did the PM say then? He said:

... I have said that the existing arrangements concerning meal breaks and public holidays will continue.

…            …            …

And it would be absurd and unfair and unreasonable if somebody has to work on a public holiday that that person isn’t compensated by being paid whatever it is, the double time or the time and a half.

…            …            …

I just want to make the general comment that those arrangements are going to continue.

That gives you the flavour of the interview and of the kinds of commitments that were made in principle, in good faith one would have assumed, to the listening audience of the Alan Jones program in August last year.

We all know the reality is totally different, and official figures put the lie to the Prime Minister’s claims. We know for a fact, from an analysis of 250 AWAs lodged with the Office of the Employment Advocate, that nearly one in five AWAs excluded all award conditions and replaced them with the barest of the five minimum legislated standards. We know that two-thirds of them scrapped leave loadings and penalty rates. We know that more than half removed shift allowances and around one-third modified overtime loadings and rest breaks. Forty per cent had dropped gazetted public holidays in face of the fact that in my state of New South Wales public holidays have been legislated in an act since 1912. So Alan Jones was absolutely right in pressing the Prime Minister on the impact of AWAs on the wages and conditions of workers. Take-home pay is being cut, and the government’s own official statistics show that. And where is the Prime Minister to defend the previously made commitments on these issues?

Let me take his commitment that existing arrangements concerning meal breaks and public holidays would continue. The Leader of the Opposition has pointed out the importance that is attached to public holidays by the Australian community. We know for a fact that current arrangements are not continuing. Look at the Spotlight AWA, about which there has been considerable publicity. What does it show? It shows no penalty rates for Saturday or Sunday work and no penalty rates for public holidays; so, currently, if a worker on the Spotlight AWA works on a public holiday, they get $14.30 an hour compared to the award of $35.70 an hour. It is an absolute shame, and the only compensation is a day off in lieu at ordinary rates. There is no overtime, no paid rest breaks, no annual leave loading and no meal, uniform or first aid allowances. And members opposite want to try and claim that the wages and conditions of workers are not being affected by this regressive and unfair industrial relations legislation. (Time expired)

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