Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor Party is Australia's oldest political party. Born from the labour movement, defending workers' rights is in our blood. Now, over 100 years later, we are still here fighting for the rights of workers across this great nation. The Albanese Labor government, like our forebears, is committed to delivering fair pay and decent conditions for Australians. With this bill, the Albanese Labor government is delivering on a key election commitment to protect the penalty rates of around 2.6 million modern-award-reliant workers, many of whom count on penalty rates to make ends meet.

Most people do work a nine to five day. Their work and their kids' schooling takes place during the week, and on the weekend there is time for rest and togetherness. It is the rhythm, and rhythm is healthy. The other way we celebrate the weekend is by going out. We might go for a hike or ride bikes, but then we often do stop somewhere for lunch, don't we? We stop at the coffee shops or we go have a nice drink at a bar. I certainly do. I know my friends do. Those lunches, the coffees, the wine bars—they don't make themselves. When we ask other people to adjust their weekly rhythm to suit ours, we need to recognise that and we need to pay for that.

The only way to fail to support penalty rates, to fail to support this legislation, is to fail to recognise that someone is putting themselves out there for us, to simply take the attitude that 'I'm alright, Jack.' Labor members do not take that attitude, not in this or in any other area of policy. Be it Medicare, universal superannuation—we were never founded on the attitude of 'I'm alright, Jack.' We cannot undervalue the workers who give up their time outside of what we consider regular working hours to provide us with the services that we seek during our downtime. So this bill comes at an important time, as we have seen a sustained effort from certain employers to roll penalty rates and overtime rates into a single rate of pay, leaving some employees worse off. The Fair Work Commission is considering a proposal from employers in the retail, clerical and banking sectors to cut the penalty rates of lower-paid workers who rely on modern awards. Can you imagine companies, businesses that are making millions or billions of dollars of profit, turning to squeeze just that little bit more out by targeting the lowest-paid workers in Australia? We can't stand by while crucial workers nationwide are left worse off. We must always act to ensure that applications like these in no way see workers' pay packets reduced. We must always act to ensure Australia's lowest paid workers are protected from wage cuts.

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