Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my electorate of Fisher, I have formed a local business advisory council—a group of business leaders in my community who meet to tell me about the issues that are important to them. At the most recent meeting of the council, the very first issue that was raised was the important, positive impact that the Fair Work Commission's decision will have on employment in our region. As the member for Longman should know, tourism and services are among the biggest employers on the Sunshine Coast. With world-class beaches, the magnificent, beautiful hinterland and the very best of coastal food and drink, our community is becoming world renowned as a leisure destination of choice. In 2015 alone, the Sunshine Coast received 5.8 million visitors; those visitors stayed more than eight million nights and spent nearly $1.7 billion.

Tourism is the lifeblood of our economy. Tourists today have rightfully high expectations for the services they receive. In particular, they expect to be able to enjoy the sights and experiences on offer seven days a week, all year round. While they are out and about enjoying our beaches, our bush and our cultural sites, they expect to be able to stop in at any one of our fantastic coffee shops and restaurants.

In Fisher, we live in a truly seven-day economy, but we live with a five-day regulatory framework. Businesses in Fisher must open on Sundays, but consumer expectations dictate that they cannot charge a Sunday premium. If you run one of the very many independent family-owned food outlets in our community, you must pay your staff almost $30 an hour. That is a lot of coffees and sandwiches. The reality is that many businesses are forced to not open, even when they desperately want to. New jobs, new and longer shifts are being lost every Sunday for the people in my electorate, because local businesses simply cannot afford to pay them.

There is a sad irony to this motion being proposed by the member for Longman—let's leave aside the fact that the Fair Work Commission inquiry was set up by the Leader of the Opposition and that its terms of reference and its members were chosen by him; in fact, they were hand-picked—and, that is, the low-paid workers that Labor claim to represent in this motion, and, in particular, the women highlighted by the member for Longman, are among those most affected by the underemployment caused in part by these stratospheric penalty rates. Let's also not forget that many members opposite, including the Leader of the Opposition, negotiated enterprise bargaining agreements that reduced Sunday penalty rates far lower than the Fair Work Commission's decision was.

If the motion is correct in saying that 'those affected are among our most industrially powerless', it is because they are represented by unions which give their workers' rights away at the first sign of a benefit for themselves. These pay agreements not only cut the pay of the workers they claim to represent but reduce further the number of small businesses that can open and the jobs that are available. Because of these pay deals, a local bed and breakfast in my electorate must pay $10 an hour more than a multinational five-star hotel. The local takeaway must pay $8 more than McDonald's. It is no wonder that they cannot afford to open and offer more jobs to local people when the deck has been stacked against them by dodgy union deals made with the blessing of this dodgy Labor Party.

There are more than 700,000 unemployed people in Australia, and many thousands more do not get as many hours as they want. They are the workers we should be thinking of. They are not receiving double time on a Sunday, as many on penalty rates are. They are receiving nothing—nada, zero, zip—because the companies cannot afford to open their doors. It is sad that those opposite just cannot understand this reality. When will you wake up to yourselves? It was your union mates with your unrealistic demands that destroyed car manufacturing in this country, and now you want to destroy the retail sector, you want to destroy fast food and you want to destroy hospitality and pharmacies in my electorate.

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