Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House acknowledges that penalty rates are relied upon by Australian workers and their families to cover everyday costs of living, no matter if they are full time, part time or casual, including workers such as:

(1) nurses;

(2) police, firefighters and ambulance officers;

(3) retail and hospitality workers;

(4) manufacturing industry employees;

(5) services sector employees; and

(6) tourism and transport industry employees.

Penalty rates form a critical part of the incomes of nurses, police, retail and hospitality workers, manufacturing workers, people who work in services and people who work in tourism and transport. All of these workers rely on their penalty rates as part of their take-home income. Frequently, these people work the night shift and unsocial hours on the weekend to be able to provide the money to keep their household budgets afloat—to keep their kids clothed and going to school, to keep the mortgage paid and to keep food on the table. So it is incredibly disturbing that in South Australia and across the nation there is a trifecta of parties who want to pretend that penalty rates are not important and to begin to destroy them in one form or another. Some of these parties opt for an outright attack on penalty rates. But many others, in a more political fashion, want to cut penalty rates as you would cut an onion—slice by slice by slice. We see in this parliament and across the nation over time these attempts to cut up penalty rates. That fallacy—that we live in a seven-day society and weekends do not matter anymore—has been frequently proved wrong whenever someone has turned up to a marginal seat MP's office on the weekend or has rung one of these employer groups on the weekend and found that the answering service is on. For many, the weekend is alive and well.

Look at the various parties. Look at the article dated 7 October 2015 headed 'Briggs steps up Turnbull attack on penalty rates'. It is all about how the member for Mayo, who is a colleague of mine from South Australia, wanted to get rid of penalty rates for small business. I do not think I am paraphrasing him there. That is what he intended to do. More recently, we have had Michaelia Cash talking in similar terms about getting rid of penalty rates. Oddly enough, the Prime Minister has gone cold on this, just like he has gone cold on the GST. They are all matters, presumably, he would come back to if and when he is granted a second term.

In my state, there are other parties as well who want to get rid of penalty rates. For instance, Family First want to get rid of penalty rates. People who are voting for Family First in the Senate would do well to look at Senator Day's proposals. He does not want to just get rid of penalty rates, which he proposed to do in his Fair Work Amendment (Penalty Rates Exemption for Small Businesses) Bill 2015—it was one of the bills he put up—he also wants to get rid of the minimum wage for young people. It is extraordinary, for someone who stands for a party that says they want to put families first, to put forward a policy in parliament that would actually diminish families' incomes.

We know that the new Nick Xenophon Team also has a hostility to penalty rates. Senator Xenophon also presented a Fair Work amendment bill with the same effect—that is, getting rid of penalty rates but just for retail workers and hospitality workers—in an attempt, as I said before, to cut the onion. We know that Stirling Griff, a would-be senator for the Nick Xenophon Team, has some form in this regard. He called penalty rates 'a noose around the neck of small business'.

You can see that there is a trifecta of parties—the Liberal Party, the Family First party, the Nick Xenophon Team—all with a hostility to penalty rates and all vowing to cut them by introducing Senate bills. We know that there was a bidding war about who could be toughest on penalty rates. Now that we are coming into a election year we want to put these three parties, this trifecta of parties that are against penalty rates, to the test and find out whether they have electoral support for their policies. I think we will find that they do not have any support at all out there in the public.

Karen McNamara (Dobell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wakefield for providing the opportunity for this side of the House to present our position on the issue of penalty rates. There is no doubt that the average Australian household relies upon many contributing factors when making up their weekly wages, with penalty rates for working outside what can be deemed normal working hours just one component. We are in an age of flexible working arrangements, extended trading hours and the availability of 24/7 online capabilities. We need to re-evaluate what is deemed normal working hours. After all, what was relevant and required last century is no longer relevant to today's 24/7 environment. However, that is a discussion for another day.

Today we are here to talk about penalty rates. I am sure that, it being an election year, the topic of penalty rates will be brought to the public's attention time and time again, particularly given the unions have invested $30 million in a scare-and-deceive campaign. It is well known that the ACTU have been spending their hardworking members' money to spread deceitful and misleading lies about cutting local jobs, weekend penalty rates and workers' rights. They distribute flyers, hold phoney debates and use their social media trolls to make deceitful and misleading claims in their desperation to claim back power and control of the Australian parliament. Shame! Sadly, it appears only the Labor Party and their BFFs, the unions, are the only ones who do not know or want to admit that penalty rates are a matter for the Fair Work Commission to determine, not the government.

I would like to make my position very clear. I am a strong supporter of local jobs. I am a strong supporter of working with employers and employees to ensure the best possible outcomes for all parties, in regard to penalty rates. I am a strong support of workers' rights and of making sure every employee is treated fairly and with respect. The government has no plans to change the way penalty rates are set.

When Bill Shorten was workplace relations minister he explicitly amended the Fair Work Act to specifically require the Fair Work Commission to review all penalty rates in awards. As a result of Labor's review, employees and restaurants had their Sunday penalty rates cut. This is the only time in Australian history when award penalty rates have been lowered, and it was under a Labor government and with the blessing of the unions. The Fair Work Act provides unions and employers the ability to make arrangements that can vary penalty rates as long as employees are deemed better off overall when compared to the relevant industry award. Unions such as the AWU and the SDA routinely use the enterprise bargaining system to negotiate changes to penalty rates in return for other trade-offs, such as high base rates of pay, to ensure a win-win result.

Interestingly, small business advocates have warned that this system favours larger employers who can negotiate concessions while leaving smaller employers out in the cold with little leverage to secure their own deals. For example, while the general retail award applying to small business owners sets Sunday rates at double time, the Woolworths national enterprise agreement, negotiated with the SDA and signed in 2012, sets the Sunday rate at time and a half.

We need a system that ensures a level playing field for smaller and larger employers alike; after all, collectively, small business is Australia's largest employer. No-one would ever disagree that there are some services that are absolutely vital to the Australian community. These include, for example, nurses, police, fire fighters, ambulance officers and some service sector employees. These professions require the utmost in professionalism and dedication; our lives are in their hands. I support them receiving appropriate remuneration for the hours that they work.

Small businesses that operate around Australia also rely on their income to support their household budgets. The reality is that there needs to be a fair and equitable payment system that ensures workers are paid appropriately for their time and skill level and ensures that employers are able to run sustainable and productive businesses that can grow and effectively create more employment for the economy.

Our community has a diverse and dynamic make-up that is far from routine. This includes our working community. Whether it is full-time, part-time or casual work in the day time, night time or on weekends, every job undertaken by a member of our community keeps our economy turning and contributes to our way of life. Every job is important. This is why making sure that the appropriate remuneration for skill level and time worked is important. It is imperative that we ensure that any system of employment works for all parties involved, not just those represented by a union thugs.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I rise to speak on the motion about the importance of penalty rates to Australian workers and their families. I support the member for Wakefield's motion as the son of a nurse and the partner of a former child protection worker who did shift work, including night work and a lot of weekend work. Now she is a lawyer, so I am the only one in my household who works weekends. I, like all of my colleagues in the Australian Labor Party, including the shadow minister beside me, will always support decent jobs with decent pay, decent rights and decent conditions, as do all unions. Unions were formed to look after workers. At the moment, whenever members of the coalition talk about penalty rates, they are sadly only talking about cutting these rates. Penalty rates compensate people for the time they miss out with their families when they have to work on weekends, nights or public holidays. I remember many, many Christmases where my mum or my wife was not able to attend because they were out serving their community. Labor knows that a cut to penalty rates is a cut to pay. It means workers and the families of the 4.5 million Australians who rely on penalty rates will be worse off.

At a time when Australia is experiencing the lowest wage growth in 25 years, it is astounding that the Abbott-Turnbull governments have even considered cutting the incomes of Australian workers. I notice that Minister Cormann sporadically makes this point and even occasionally seems to believe this point. We now have a Prime Minister who has very little understanding of or empathy towards families who struggle to make ends meet. We need a Prime Minister who understands that penalty rates are crucial in some households. That is why the Prime Minister continues to turn a blind eye to things like tax avoidance by some of this country's biggest companies while simultaneously presiding over the death of the traditional weekend and the associated penalty rates for everyday Australians. Too often recently, the Australian economic debate has boiled down to a call to slash penalty rates and remove important employee protections, and we have seen that the government of Prime Minister Turnbull has rewarded people that have called for cuts to penalty rates by appointing them to government positions.

Currently working under these provisions are nurses, police and emergency service workers. Reports have shown that a cut in Sunday penalty rates could potentially cost young nurses and midwives $2,000 a year at a minimum. For those with more experience, it would be many thousands more. Our nurses, our police and our emergency service providers have one of the most important and sometimes, sadly, one of the most dangerous jobs: to deliver care or protection to people who at any time may be some of the most vulnerable members of our community. It is only fair that these workers are fairly compensated for the work they do at unsociable hours and on weekends and public holidays, when they leave their families to care for others. To even suggest that such workers would lose their penalty rates is disrespectful and should be condemned.

The government may intend the attack on penalty rates to exclude nurses, police, firefighters or ambulance officers, but the idea that in their place retail, hospitality, manufacturing, services, tourism and transport workers should have this pay cut is outrageous. Working- and middle-class families are already struggling to keep their heads above water. I know of thousands of people in my electorate who rely on weekend penalty rates to simply make ends meet, and this is a vote changer topic from what I can tell from the street stalls I did on the weekend.

Penalty rates for these industries are not a luxury, and rarely are they used to generate per-capita disposable income; they are instead what puts food on the table and petrol in the car for millions of Australian families. For example, take Ben, a university student from the bush living in my electorate of Moreton. I particularly ask the National Party to take note of this, because, like so many people moving to Brisbane from the country to attend university, he studies full time and lives in a share house with friends, but, in order to pay for rent, food, household amenities and university supplies, Ben works in the retail sector and, due to university commitments, has no other option than working on the weekends. So a reduction or removal of weekend penalty rates will considerably damage Ben's living arrangements and those of millions of other Australians, particularly those brighter kids from the bush that are trying to improve their circumstances. The reality is that weekend work is not just for emergency service workers; it is also for kids from the bush like Ben. For many workers in retail, hospitality, manufacturing, services, tourism and transport, weekend work is not a choice; it is unavoidable and vitally important for their families' future, and those industries depend on their labour and the Labor Party to protect their rights. (Time expired)

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must admit that I am a little confused about this debate. We have heard the member for Wakefield and the member for Moreton come to the dispatch box and rabbit on about supposed cuts to penalty rates for nurses and emergency services workers. I know of no such proposals. No-one in this country is suggesting that our nurses and our emergency services workers, who do a very important and valued job, should have their penalty rates cut. The only people that are talking about this are the Labor Party. Sadly, it is nothing other than a shameful scare campaign. To go out there and to scare workers—to scare nurses and emergency services workers—into thinking there is some plan to cut their penalty rates is absolutely shameful. But that is what we have seen in this chamber this morning—just a shameful, misleading scare campaign.

A concept everyone here agrees with is: if someone works unsocial hours, they should be paid a higher rate of remuneration. We must look at this as overtime rates rather than penalty rates. The distinction is a penalty is a deterrent to employment. We cannot have penalty rates set in certain industries that become deterrents to employment. Where that becomes important is not at all in our Public Service areas, because their wages are funded by government, whether they are state or federal, but in the private sector, where the only way those penalty wages and those overtime rates can be paid is through the profits of the business. If the business is not making a profit, it cannot pay those overtime rates. So there is no point if a business is closed because those overtime rates are too high. We must remember that, if the wage being paid is zero, it does not matter what the overtime rate is, because it simply becomes a deterrent to employment.

That is what we are seeing in some areas of the hospitality industry today. That is all that we are talking about. That is all the discussion is through the Productivity Commission. That is the only very narrow area in this economy. The question is: in some limited areas of the hospitality industry are the penalty rates on a Sunday actually set at a rate that is costing jobs? No-one benefits if a business is closed and the workers get no jobs because the penalty rates are set too high, and that is exactly what we are seeing. I am glad that the member for Wakefield moved this motion. There was an example recently in his home state on Australia Day where a business put up a sign out the front apologising to their customers that they were closed because they simply could not generate enough profit on the day to pay a penalty rate of $48 per hour plus superannuation. They would have had to raise profits from that business at $50 an hour to pay their staff, and they did their sums and they could not do it. So the penalty rate actually cost jobs. Where members of the Labor Party feel sorry for and give examples of people who are concerned they will have their penalty rates cut, I am concerned about people who are getting a wage of zero on a Sunday because the penalty rates are set too high.

There is another case where we have seen disparity. The unions have signed up agreements to cut penalty rates with the big supermarkets, so now we have this two-tier system where our larger supermarket chains are paying a much lower penalty rate on the weekend than small businesses are—signed up by members of the Labor Party. They are the ones who cut the penalty rates of their own workers because of their nice cosy deal with the big supermarkets. In this economy we want as many people to earn as many dollars as they possibly can. That is the ultimate aim of this government, but we cannot do that if in the hospitality industry in some small areas it is actually costing jobs. (Time expired)

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also thank the member for Wakefield for bringing this important motion to us. I thank the member for Hughes for at least being able to qualify for us that not only are those sitting opposite the party that wanted to Americanise our education system; they also want to Americanise our industrial relations system. They want people working in hospitality to survive on tips. When we look at that we need to make sure we put this in context. This is the party that introduced Work Choices in 2007. Remember what that did? Work Choices for the very first time in our history made it legal to employ people below an award. They are the people who now say, 'We're feeling sorry for people because they can't open because they think the costs are too high.' No-one is considering the issue about workers here. My dad was a police officer. All my life I have known him to be a shiftworker. My brother was a paramedic with the Ambulance Service of New South Wales—a shiftworker. My son Jonathan is a builder. He has been a shiftworker all his life. My other son Nicholas, an electrician, is a shiftworker.

Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, do you realise that, according to the last census, there are 1.5 million Australians who are shiftworkers? They depend on their penalty rates. As a matter of fact, 30 per cent of their earnings come from penalty rates. If you listened to all these people opposite you would think that, yes, we could cut those workers' wages by 30 per cent. You would think we could manipulate shiftwork payments and create more jobs because they are going to pay people less. That is a fallacy. All of those the opposite are talking about are some people being able to go out and make more profits. Simply cutting penalty rates does not give you extra customers. Simply cutting penalty rates does not suddenly increase your trade. I will tell you what it does do. As soon as you cut penalty rates, you cut people's take-home pay. That is what this is all about. This is not an issue of how we are going to stimulate the economy by cutting wages.

We sitting here in parliament do not get penalty rates, but I think that those of us who have the honour of representing our communities do pretty well. We are well remunerated for what we do. I am not sure those opposite are going to say, 'Let's peg our rates.' Let us put this in context. When we talk about this, we are talking about cutting the rates of pay for people who are, in many instances, some of the lowest paid people in the country—people in retail and hospitality. They are the equivalent of those people who, in America, rely on tips. This is just another exercise of trying to cut rates of pay.

The McKell Institute discovered that cutting penalty rates for rural workers would cost workers about $900 million to $1.5 billion per annum. The cost to local communities was that people's disposable income—what they could spend in their local communities—would reduce by about $500 million. This would really impact on rural communities.

This is not a magical job-creating situation where, all of a sudden, we are going to create 60,000 jobs. What we might do is create more employment, but it will be at a lower rate of pay. To earn the rate of money they currently enjoy, people would have to work extra shifts. This is about reducing the take-home pay of people and saying that, somehow, it is going to stimulate industry. That is a complete fallacy. The majority of Australians support penalty rates. We know that; that is a fact. In 2007, the majority of Australians said that tampering with the industrial relations system to allow people to be paid lower than award rates of pay was a no-go zone.

These are things that do not just affect people who vote Labor. We are talking about retail and hospitality workers—low-paid workers, on the whole. Maybe they do vote for us, but I am sure you have a lot of such people in your communities who vote conservative. Maybe they vote for the Liberals sometimes—poorly advised, of course—or maybe for the Nationals. If you look in your communities, you will find a considerable number of people who are completely reliant on their penalty rates. Simply to go and cut their penalty rates will not do anything to stimulate our economy.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, I invite you to Magnetic Island. Magnetic Island, off the coast of Townsville, is the jewel in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It is truly the most wonderful place in the world. As you board the ferry and go across to Magnetic Island, you feel your blood pressure lower. It is the most relaxing part of the world. You can go across there and do all sorts of things. You can ride your pushbike, you can go topless in a motor car—the car, not the person, has no top; they call it Tropical Topless and Classic Moke Car Rentals—you can hop on a little moped and go around, and you can go to Alma Bay, Horseshoe Bay, Geoffrey Bay, anywhere you want. But you have to be careful when you go across on a Saturday or Sunday, because, the way the industry is at the moment, when you are in a tourist destination where the disposable income is such, you are completely at the mercy of people hopping onto a ferry to come across to Magnetic Island. You must have your wages set and you must have your place staffed before the weekend comes up. If there is the slightest whiff that it might be it rainy or blowing a gale and rough on the water, then the number of people going across to Magnetic Island will drop. That means that the cafes, restaurants and bars will have fewer people, and you might be paying $65 an hour for a waitress in a coffee shop there to stand around and serve no-one. It means you lose. It means the business loses.

What we are seeing in Townsville is that, quite often when people go across to Magnetic Island, the places are already shut—they have made a decision not to open. That then becomes self-fulfilling prophecy. Why would you go across to Magnetic Island when the chances are nothing is going to be open? It becomes a snowball effect of how business operates on Magnetic Island. Magnetic Island is a tremendous place to go. Magnetic Island is a wonderful place to be. The food over there is second to none. The service over there is second to none. But what happens if there is no-one there? What happens if you are standing around and no-one is coming in to buy anything? The owner of that business is paying out $65 an hour per person for people to stand there and do nothing. No-one can survive doing that. So we are seeing places not open. That is an extreme example, but you are seeing it again and again across the country, where places choose not to open.

A couple of years ago I was at the Avenues Tavern in Kirwan, and I was talking to the publican there. He was having a chip at me. He said that the previous Australia Day, when everyone was loading up for home and making sure they were all organised for the day, he had two blokes in the bottle shop and, because Australia Day was on a Sunday, they were getting paid $70 an hour. He said he sold about three cartons of beer the entire day. He said, 'What are you going to do about it? What is this government going to do about it?' I said, 'I'm going to give you my resume—I'll do it for you; I'll do the full 12 hours next time we're there!' If you are standing around doing nothing and you are standing around not making any money, the business goes down the gurgler. You cannot survive. So what has to happen? You either shut the business and miss out completely or it has to be addressed.

I do not have a problem with anyone getting penalty rates. I do have an issue with the example the member for Moreton was talking about, of someone who can only work on weekends—that is the only time that is available to him, when it is convenient for him to work. Why is his time worth twice as much as the time of a working mum who has got two kids at school and is only available to work during school hours Monday to Friday? Why is the time of Ben who lives in the Moreton electorate worth twice as much—to work when he wants to work—as the time of a mum to work on a Wednesday when she wants to work? Why is that? How is that fair to the mum on the Wednesday? Can anyone explain it to me?

And can we please on the other side there stop talking about fireys, ambos, police, paramedics, nurses—all those people who are essential services, who are state employees? These are two separate debates. There is no way in the world you can frame a debate around cutting the rates for nurses or anything like that, because there is no market to call on when people need them. No-one in their right mind would think about cutting the pay rates, penalty rates and allowances for nurses and other people in those front-line services, and neither should they. For those on the other side to say that is complete and utterly disingenuous.

Debate adjourned.