Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

While our Prime Minister speaks ebulliently about the excitement of the seven-day-a-week economy, he is much quieter when it comes to the sort of society it implies and its consequences for the 4½ million Australians who rely on penalty rates, and, indeed, for all of us—how we relate to one another and the sort of society we wish to live in. This is a telling omission that goes to the very heart of this debate—or, having heard what we have heard from government members, what passes for debate in this place and around it.

In the Scullin electorate many people rely on penalty rates to pay their bills, their mortgage or their the rent and to feed their families. Younger constituents, who are studying at university or TAFE, often tell me that because of the scheduling of their classes the only time they can work is weekends. While that means they have to sacrifice significant time with their families and friends, the little bit extra from penalty rates ensures that they can buy their textbooks, pay their rent and keep their mobile phone service running. The same goes for mothers and fathers forced to sacrifice weekend activities with kids because they are paid that little bit extra on a Sunday, which pays for schooling, food and birthday presents. Nurses, doctors, the police, the fire service and paramedics simply cannot take days off. They are needed 24 hours, seven days a week. The idea that we would rip money from their pockets because the government does not think Sundays are important anymore is unfathomable to Labor members. It is often only a small amount of extra income for their time, but for the many people in the communities I represent it is often the difference between getting a bill paid on time or receiving an overdue notice and a penalty.

So it should be surprising that this government is reviewing the very thing that is supporting struggling everyday Australians at a time of record low wages growth, so far from the wages explosion used to justify the productivity inquiry that brought this issue before the parliament—an inquiry that the Prime Minister does not seem keen to talk about, despite saying that lowering penalty rates was somehow inevitable, and when the Prime Minister agreed that, because of the seven-day economy, penalty rates were now an anachronism. Again, this is not in the context of runaway wages growth—quite the contrary. The minimum wage is falling today as a proportion of the average wage income. Inequality is growing, as is insecurity in the workplace.

In this context, penalty rates really matter. The Prime Minister's assertions are simply not backed by the evidence. The overwhelming majority of Australians still work regular Monday to Friday work weeks, as the member for Newcastle pointed out. According to the Australian Work and Life Index, nearly 40 per cent of workers receiving weekend penalty rates rely on them to meet ordinary household expenses, and more than half of those work for penalty rates on Sundays. Mortgage debt is at an all-time high in Australia today, so many people are forced through circumstance to work unsocial hours, at the expense of the rest of their lives, to simply keep their homes.

The harmful effects on people are clear, but this also leads to broader negative economic impacts. In very simple terms, if we pay people less to do their jobs, people have less disposable income and less money to spend. It also means that less money is being raised in both direct and indirect tax, leaving the government with less income in their coffers. Let's also be clear about this: there is no empirical evidence that lower wage rates equal more employment. This shibboleth has to be put to bed. Even the Productivity Commission, in the report used by government members to justify their ideological attack on working people, notes this fact—an inconvenient truth, but a truth nonetheless.

This is one of the reasons why the Australian people and the Australian Labor Party emphatically reject our new Prime Minister's vision for Australian workplaces as places where people work harder and longer for less. The Labor Party is standing up with working people and for them to protect weekends and public holidays because we want to protect living standards, broadly defined. It is about supporting decent wages, for sure, but also a social compact around how we live. We believe that, if you work on a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday while everyone else is enjoying their weekends, their time off, you deserve appropriate remuneration.

What we have seen elsewhere in workplaces like 7-Eleven in recent times is another example of the exploitation of workers in Australia. These are not isolated incidents; they are instructive of what can happen where there are imbalances of power between workers and employers. The abolition or the paring back of penalty rates will not provide higher employment, greater productivity and more services or help people make ends meet. When the facts are presented away from the Prime Minister's cheap sophistry, the case for changing our penalty rates regime is exposed as just another coalition attack on rights at work and, indeed, on the Australian social compact. It must be rejected emphatically in this place, as it has been in the community.

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