Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm very proud to be here speaking on this bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025, which protects workers' penalty rates. I do so because it's an important bill for my electorate, especially, and for everyone's electorate as it amends the Fair Work Act 2009 to legislate protections to ensure that penalty and overtime rates in modern awards cannot be reduced or substituted by another term that would reduce employees' take-home pay. Our workers, who rely on overtime and penalty rates, deserve nothing less. That's why I'm supporting this bill and why all of us on this side are supporting the bill.

In the electorate of Adelaide there are approximately 8,925 people employed in the retail industry and 6,328 employed in construction industries. There are workers in many other industries who work overtime or who work on weekends or after hours within my electorate. Every single one of those workers deserves to have their penalty rates and overtime rates protected, and that's exactly what this government bill is doing.

With the CBD at the centre of the seat of Adelaide, we have the state's major department stores within the geographical boundary. We have workers in the retail and the hospitality industries, in cafes and pubs. We have shift workers in the hospitals that are based in my electorate. We have people who work after hours. We have part-time workers and many university students who rely on these penalty rates, when they work on the weekends, to meet the cost of living; we hear about the hardships that are taking place at the moment.

It's very important that, as a government, we do everything to protect workers and to protect their penalty rates and overtime rates when they work. Let's just think about it. Many of us go out to a restaurant to eat on Mother's Day, on Father's Day, on Sundays and even on Christmas Day. We enjoy the day with our families—with our kids and our grandkids—yet there are workers there to serve us and make sure that we enjoy that day. Think about it. They've given up their family time, their public holiday, their Sunday or the special time that they have with their family because they work shifts throughout the week just to serve the public. They deserve their penalty rates, and they deserve to be paid according to the overtime rates. No-one should have to give that up. That's why this bill is so important.

Think of industrial relations and the many bills that have come before this place. There's a regular pattern that takes place in things like, for example, WorkChoices. It was the other side that brought that in, that looked at downgrading these rates, at eating into those extras that existed for workers because they gave up their free time or worked extra hours et cetera. When we first formed government we were the side, the Labor side, that actually lobbied for the commission to give an extra pay rise to the lowest paid workers in the country. Yet the other side said it wasn't up to us or governments to do that. We know that workers are better off under Labor governments. That is historically a fact. If you look back at the history, since the party was established in 1891, you'll see that workers have been better off every time a Labor government has been formed. And there's no better time than now for a Labor government, with the cost-of-living pressures, because all of this assists and helps those people who are struggling and doing it tough. It's so important.

Penalty rates have been in Australia for many years, in Queensland from when the Labor Party was formed in 1891 and then gradually in the other states; that's well over 100 years. This was the bread and butter of our political party. We were formed for this reason. We were formed to govern, of course, but a major part of our scope was to ensure that workers' rights were protected, that workers were given dignity and that workers could actually get paid so that they could afford to live, to put bread and butter on the table, to dress their kids, to send them to school and to do all the things that give dignity to human beings. As I said, penalty rates have been around for many, many years, but it wasn't until 1947, when there was a ruling by the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, that penalty rates were effectively established and standardised for millions of Australians who relied on penalty rates to keep their heads above water.

I recall clearly when my parents were working. They were both working. My mother worked at the Royal Adelaide Hospital as a domestic, as a cleaner and in the kitchen. In those days, she worked shift work. My father worked at General Motors-Holden. I remember him waiting to hear if he was going to work on the Saturday, which was overtime for him—an extra eight hours that was paid in those days at time and a half, I think—which made all the difference for our family. I remember the conversations around the kitchen table when, occasionally, he'd be despondent because he wasn't given overtime on that particular Saturday. You've got to remember that this was in the sixties, when motor vehicles were pouring off the production line nonstop and people had to keep up with the sale of those cars, so many factory workers were actually working on Saturdays. I recall it very well. Had there been no penalty rates, it could have been a very different story for my family. I don't know, and we'll never know. The case is exactly the same today for all those people that I mentioned when I started talking—part-time workers, a lot of women in retail, people in the hospitality industry and university students who keep their heads above water by being able to work on Saturday nights, Sundays et cetera. So it's very, very important.

There's been a sustained effort from certain employers to combine penalty and overtime rates into one single rate of pay. This obviously—it's not rocket science—would leave some of those workers worse off, and we don't want that situation. We don't want workers to be worse off and to have less pay, and that's what this bill prevents. It gives certainty and a guarantee that they won't, so I can't see why anyone would be opposing a bill that will guarantee some of our lowest paid workers the benefit of being able to keep their heads above water through penalty rates.

It is something that, as we heard the member for Newcastle say earlier, gives dignity to those people. If we can't give dignity to those people, why are we here? If we can't give dignity to people who earn the least amount of money of anyone in the country and who are doing it tough to keep their heads above water, to keep the fridges full at home and to keep their kids at school, then we have to really think about why we're here, because it's for those people that these safety nets, like penalty rates, have been put up so we can protect them. These are hardworking Australians who keep the country going and running on weekends, public holidays and late nights through many, many shift hours et cetera—shift work. They deserve a system that fairly compensates them for this work. Relative to all employees, award-reliant employees are more likely to be women under the age of 35 who work part time and are employed on a casual basis.

The bill adds this new section to the act to establish a clear principle that, when exercising its powers to make, vary or revoke modern awards, the Fair Work Commission must ensure that the specified penalty or overtime rates are not reduced and that modern awards do not include terms that are substitutes for employees' entitlements to receive penalty or overtime rates where those terms would have the effect of reducing the additional remuneration any employee would otherwise receive. The bill will commence, of course, the day after it receives royal assent, reflecting this government's election commitment to move quickly to protect something that is a necessity for low-paid workers and shift workers, and that is penalty and overtime rates for Australia's lowest paid workers. It'll ensure that award-reliant workers continue to be fairly compensated for working overtime or working those unsocial, irregular or unpredictable hours, weekends, public holidays and/or shifts.

It preserves the commission's existing powers under, in particular, section 144 to insert flexibility terms into awards. That allows employers and employees to enter into individual flexibility arrangements, including to vary penalty and overtime rates, as long as the existing legislated safeguard of ensuring they are better off compared to the standard terms is met. The bill preserves the commission's existing powers under section 160 of the act to vary a modern award to remove any ambiguity, uncertainty or to correct an error. The safeguards in the enterprise bargaining framework remain unchanged. Parties would still be able to bargain at the enterprise level to reduce that existing rate, so long as the commission is satisfied the enterprise agreement meets the better off overall test.

As I said earlier, in my electorate there are 8,925 people employed in the retail industry, 6,328 employed in the construction industry and many thousands of others employed in the hospitality industry and in health work who all work shifts, weekends and public holidays. They will continue to benefit from penalty and overtime rates as a result of this bill. As a result of this bill, it will be guaranteed that they get paid the correct rates if they're working overtime, on weekends and after hours—as they should be. These, as I said, are hardworking Australians. They keep the country going. They're running on weekends, public holidays and late nights, throughout shift hours, so they deserve this system. They deserve a system that compensates them for their work.

As I said, many of us are home with our families on the weekends. We enjoy that family life or we enjoy our sport or we enjoy going to the races or we enjoy just going down to the pub for a meal, but there are people that keep all these things running. There are people there who have given up their weekend. They've given up their family. They're working hard to ensure that they earn a little bit of extra money. They've given up that time to service us, to service the rest of the community, and we should never forget that. Next time you're out on a public holiday being served by someone, thank them—thank them for being there servicing us and giving up their time.

This bill won't impose any additional costs or red tape. That's really important to note. There are no additional costs, and there's no red tape. It doesn't force employers to bargain either. The government has introduced these significant reforms to reinvigorate enterprise bargaining, including by making the bargaining framework more streamlined and accessible.

Since our election in 2022, the government has had a track record of protecting and improving the lives of our Australian workers, especially low-paid workers. For example, our same job, same pay laws have seen thousands of workers receiving up to $60,000 extra in their pay packets each year—another reform that was about dignity and fairness. Two people could have been working side by side doing the exact same job, yet there were loopholes in the law that allowed one to get paid less and the other one more. How is that fair? It is not fair, and we made sure we put an end to that.

We 've criminalised intentional wage theft, meaning that starting from 1 January this year any employer who deliberately underpays a worker's wage or entitlements could be committing a criminal offence and could be referred to the Fair Work Ombudsman for criminal prosecution. We've seen many cases where it's systematic. They can argue that it was a mistake or that it was something that they weren't aware of, but we've seen it. It happens and it happens regularly. We saw it in the 7-Eleven story that came out a few years ago. These are people that are working shift work, that are working weekends, yet there are unscrupulous people that will take advantage of them. We don't want that. This government supports everyday hardworking Australians, and it won't end there. Our workplace relations framework has gender equality at its heart, and it's helped reduce the gender pay gap to the lowest level since records began.

As I said, I am extremely proud of this bill, and it's something, as we heard earlier, that gives dignity to workers and ensures they get paid the correct amount when they give up their family time and work after hours and extra hours.

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