Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Last financial year, Harvey Norman increased its profit by 30 per cent to over $348 million. If the Prime Minister gets his way, it will also receive a generous tax cut. At the same time, the decision to cut penalty rates will mean thousands of Harvey Norman workers will have their pay cut. Is this the Prime Minister's Australia—taxpayer funded handouts to big business but pay cuts for hardworking Australians?

Ms Henderson interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Corangamite is warned.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question and I assume he has carefully checked that and is satisfied that Harvey Norman workers are all covered by a modern award and there is not an enterprise agreement for Harvey Norman. I am sure he has carefully checked that. Obviously, he is a former union official, but no doubt we will establish that.

The consideration of the Fair Work Commission was a long and elaborate one, and a very complex one. They considered, for example, whether the public holiday rate in the retail industry—

Mr Khalil interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Wills can leave under standing order 94(a).

The member for Wills then left the chamber.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

should be 250 per cent for all employees. They considered that carefully and they came to the conclusion that it should be 225 per cent for full-time employees but should remain at 250 per cent for casuals. And so it goes on through a whole series of modern awards—a very complex task, with thousands of pages of evidence and hundreds of witnesses.

That is why we support the independent umpire doing this work. The Labor Party in the past, and the Leader of the Opposition in particular, has done the same, because he recognised then that it is a careful piece of work to do and, obviously, views will differ as to whether, for example, the rate for casuals in the pharmacy industry should be 275 per cent, as it has been, or 250 per cent, as set in the decision by the Fair Work Commission. There may have been parties before the commission that argued it should be 225 per cent; I do not know whether anyone argued it should be 300 per cent—but, whatever the process of debate may have been, a careful consideration was undertaken, a very detailed analysis. That has been the way in which these matters have been dealt with for many, many years. The Leader of the Opposition has been, again and again, a supporter of that. He said, for example, in 2015:

… if there's going to be any debate about penalty rates it should be done through the independent umpire and through negotiation.

Well, we support the independent umpire—there: it has been done—and so should he. As far as negotiation is concerned, we see it again and again. If you are an AWU member for the Melbourne and Olympic Parks Trust, you can see that the penalty rates were traded away there—'Bill Shorten, State Secretary, Australian Workers Union'. Once again, a deal was done to vary the penalty rates as part of an industrial agreement.

So there are two ways to deal with penalty rates, says the Leader of the Opposition—one by negotiation, one by the independent umpire—and he should back them. (Time expired)