Steve Gibbons (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to see my friend the member for Corangamite in his usual adjournment mode, wandering around the government benches looking for any coins that might inadvertently have fallen out of his colleagues’ pockets, and I wish him well.

Last night the Howard-government-appointed chair of the low pay commission admitted that the government’s legislation pushes the Fair Pay Commission to reduce the minimum wage in real terms. The government is clearly not satisfied with having argued for lower wages for the past 10 years. In fact, had the Prime Minister’s arguments been adhered to then millions of Australian workers would have been $50 per week, or $2,500 a year, worse off. Professor Harper’s admission clearly indicates that the second leg of the Howard government’s wages race to the bottom, further lowering of the minimum wage, is under way.

The ruthless campaign by the owners of Spotlight stores to systematically reduce the real take-home pay of their staff is just one example. Spotlight, Australia’s largest fabric store chain, is using the federal government’s new workplace laws to strip away penalty rates for shiftwork, overtime and public holidays as well as to scrap annual leave loading and scheduled rest breaks. This is not scaremongering by the unions or the opposition, as the Howard government would have the general public believe. It is a fact. The loss of these conditions by Spotlight employees is despite the numerous guarantees from the Howard government that the employees’ minimum conditions would be ‘protected’. Spotlight’s so-called agreement will offer staff a miserable 2c per hour extra in exchange for losing at least eight award conditions, resulting in losses of up to $90 per week. Shop assistants are not highly paid or highly unionised and are some of the least able to afford a pay reduction of around $90 a week.

Spotlight could not use the argument that economic conditions or profitability were to blame. Spotlight operates approximately 100 stores in Australia, employing more than 5,000 staff, as well as having stores in New Zealand and Singapore. Research on the company shows that Spotlight has been growing at about seven per cent annually and that the two Melbourne based brothers who own the company have been listed in the Business Review Weekly Rich 200 list of Australia’s wealthiest individuals at No. 86, with a fortune valued at $340 million. They obviously subscribe to the ‘greed is good’ mentality championed by the Howard government. The Howard government’s new IR laws have always had the unstated objective of reducing wages and conditions in real terms. Their potential impact has always been alarming, but when an extremely profitable national company with a large store in our backyard starts to exploit working people, in keeping with the government’s new IR legislation, it is truly frightening.

There is no clearer example of the Howard government’s destructive performance in regional Australia than the potential loss of 250 jobs in Bendigo that has emerged just in the past two weeks. Kyneton’s John Brown Hosiery factory have announced they will close with the loss of around 40 jobs; Milnes engineering in Bendigo have closed with the loss of 30 jobs; Network 10 Bendigo have announced the loss of 10 jobs; there are 19 jobs under threat at Bendigo’s Mirridong aged care facility; and Empire Rubber in Bendigo have announced they are considering laying off 150 employees. The potential loss of around 250 jobs in Bendigo could result in the direct reduction of wages of at least $10 million a year in the Bendigo economy.

These 250 jobs potentially lost in such a short period are a damning indictment of the Howard government’s management of the economy, the new workplace relations legislation and tariff reduction policies. The Prime Minister and the Treasurer constantly brag about their strong management of the economy, but the possibility of losing 250 jobs in two weeks clearly shows how severely their policies impact in the real world. Companies and small businesses are either experiencing considerable financial pressure or just taking advantage of the Howard government’s new workplace relations laws to shed jobs at current award rates with the intention of replacing them with workers on Australian workplace agreements at substantially reduced wages and conditions.

It is bad enough that low-income wage earners have lost their jobs—and I am pleased the Minister for Human Services is in the House to listen to this—but those with young families who receive family payment benefits could be facing substantial tax slugs because they would have underestimated their annual income for this financial year. They would have had no way of knowing that their employment would be terminated, and any accrued entitlements and termination payments would not have been allowed for, potentially resulting in a substantial tax debt in some cases. I want to stress that this only applies to some employees who are in receipt of family payment benefits. Those redundant workers who do not receive family payment benefits are usually not affected by this callous and unfair treatment.

I raised this appalling situation with the Howard government in late 2004 on behalf of two or three former employees of the Frew abattoirs in Kyneton, but the government flatly refused to help, other than by extending the time allowed for people to pay the debt. In fact, a letter to me from the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration stated that, since the Howard government believed the abattoir’s closure was not the fault of the government, they could see no reason to help the redundant workers. If anyone has any doubts regarding just how unfair the Howard government’s treatment of low-income earners is then this clearly should remove all doubt. I will continue to harass the Howard government until they rectify this appalling and heartless situation—and, Minister, I will be writing a letter to you very shortly along those lines. (Time expired)