Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are times when we believe that common sense will out. The fact that it took about two years in this particular case has been a cause for great amazement in my electorate, as people, both employers and children who are employed by local businesses, came to me asking what on earth the government was doing in this area. I hold the premise that, if the parent is happy, if the worker—in this case the child—is happy and the employer is happy, surely should they should be able to get their heads together and make a deal. Parents, after all, have the primary responsibility for making sure their children are not exploited. One wonders just how we got into this space in the first place. I accept the fact that Fair Work Australia received an appeal on this and overturned its original rulings. It is disappointing that the union challenged. I am one of those people who think that unions play a very necessary part in the life of Australia, but they devalue the public's sense of their worth when they become welded to the ideological frameworks which are impossible to justify in a common-sense world.

At the time of this outbreak, it was brought to my attention that a number of kids work in the town of Wirrabara, which sits on the eastern side of the Flinders Ranges. The nearest school is at a place called Gladstone, which is about 30 kilometres down the road. They cannot possibly get back to Wirrabara before 4.30 in the afternoon, and the shop where they were working, the IGA, closes at six o'clock, so there is your hour and a half. The IGA may be able to find two hours work for them, but, effectively, they were ruled out of business. This became a severe complication for the business. Following their reports, many more people in my electorate came to me. I think, by and large, businesses were tending to ignore the rulings—I certainly would not like to name the ones that were—because they thought it was just too stupid to be true, and eventually they were proved to be right. One manager said to me, 'I run a family-friendly workplace here'—this is another IGA store. He said, 'I specifically employ mothers through to around about 3:30.' Then he lets them knock off, and they are replaced by the kids that are coming out of school. He said, 'It works great for families. It works really well for my business. It is really great for the children to get some experience in the workplace.' Effectively, the law as it stood overruled the possibility of doing that.

There was a time in this debate where I was beginning to wonder where we were going to find an out; that it was tied up in the industrial courts. I thought, 'This is a disservice, a disservice to our children.' In the case where I was talking about the employer who was running a family-friendly workplace not only did he raise the issue—because it is all tied up with the Fair Work Act that we have these other implications that are flowing through the system at the moment, particularly on penalty rates around the weekend. I know it is not specifically concerned with this, but it is under the Fair Work Act.

I was speaking to a restaurateur just recently. He runs a very successful place. He employers over 20 people. He operates 365 days a year. I said to him, 'How are you going on the holiday Mondays? How are you going on the days where you have to pay excessive penalty rates?' He said, 'I lose money.' I said, 'Why do you open?' He said, 'Just so I can say I trade for 365 days a year.'

It is a real problem for the retail industry. It is a real problem for the hospitality industry. I have other friends who no longer open on Sundays. They use a junior workforce but they are compelled to employ for longer periods on the weekends. If we want Australia to be a 24-hour economy, if we want Australia to have a flexible workplace, then we have to allow the workplace to be flexible and to operate in that manner.

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