Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in strong support of the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025. For millions of Australians, penalty rates are not just a bonus and they are not a luxury; they are part of the safety net. They are the difference between keeping a roof over their heads and falling behind. They are the difference between paying the rent, putting food on the table and saving for a home, or just being left to struggle through the week. To Australians we say that if you work weekends, public holidays, late nights or early mornings, you deserve your penalty rates, and Labor will always protect them.

In Western Australia, this could not be more important. In retail alone there are 153,200 people employed as of May 2025, and nearly 109,000 employed in hospitality. That's more than a quarter of a million people whose livelihoods depend on penalty rates and overtime rates. These are students; parents, often women; casual workers; young people in their first jobs; and workers in regional towns who keep our pubs open, our shops running and our communities thriving. When their wages are on the line, it is only Labor who will stand up for them.

Under the General Retail Industry Award, a level 8 employee earns $32.45 an hour during a normal weekday. On Sunday, that jumps to $48.68 an hour. On a public holiday, it is $73.01 an hour. For shiftworkers, rates are even higher, particularly for early morning or night shifts. Overtime rates increase further, with the Sunday overtime rate at $64.90 an hour and public holiday overtime at $81.13 per hour. In hospitality, a level 1 food and beverage attendant earns $29.88 on a weekday, which becomes $44.82 on a Sunday and $67.23 on a public holiday. Evening and night shifts attract additional loadings, and casual employees have a further casual loading included in these rates. These are not just perks; they are wages that people plan their lives around to pay for rent, food, groceries, fuel, child care and study costs. They rely on these rates to get through the week. Nationally, 2.6 million Australians rely on the modern award safety net. Many of them serve your coffee, stock our shelves or clean the office. They might even do your hair. This bill ensures those essential workers that keep our economy going don't see their wages cut through the back door.

I got my first job when I was 15 years old. It was at the brand-new Subway opening at the Baldivis shopping centre. I really applied mostly because my friend from school was applying too. He didn't get the job, but I did, because they only employed girls at that point. I had to catch two or sometimes three buses to get there from home or school, and I always worked Thursday nights and either a Saturday or a Sunday. While I wasn't quite sure about applying for the job, it really did make a difference to me, as a young person living in the outer suburbs of Perth, to be able to go out and do the things that young people might do on the weekend. I was a little boring. We liked to go to the movies. That was probably about as exciting as it got. It was a great job. My mum used to say that I came home on a Thursday night smelling like Subway bread. I really relied on those penalty rates and continued to well into my late teens, when I was studying at university. There just wasn't another way around it. Without a doubt, the three best things about that job as a sandwich artist at Subway were—not necessarily in this order—the strange guy who came in every day and ordered a foot-long veggie sub every single day, the frozen cookie dough, which we definitely weren't allowed to eat but certainly did—I highly recommend it if you haven't tried it—and the penalty rates. I'm still very specific to this day about my Subway order: don't give me only three olives, don't give me two pieces of tomato, and don't give me flexibility measures when it means less money in workers' pockets.

We've seen what happens when penalty rates are cut. In 2017, the Liberal-National government slashed penalty rates for retail and hospitality workers. They promised it would create jobs, but instead workers lost thousands of dollars a year, and there was no evidence, ever, that cutting wages created more work. These essential workers had to pick up extra shifts just to make ends meet—shifts that meant less time at home with their families, less time studying and less time to rest.

Some of the big business groups—the usual suspects—are back, arguing that cutting or rolling up penalty rates will create jobs. Those opposite argue that it might improve productivity. They want flexibility arrangements that allow companies to offer a slightly higher base pay in exchange for forgoing penalty rates. We say that is not good enough. Research shows us and history shows us time and time again that this is a con. The numbers never add up for workers. All it does is lock in permanently lower pay for the workers who rely on penalty rates to get by.

Retail and hospitality penalty rate cuts have shown no evidence of job growth. In fact, studies estimate that penalty rates contribute roughly $14 billion a year to the economy, supporting aggregate demand. Arrangements exchanging penalty rates for higher base salaries do nothing except to save businesses money and leave employees worse off overall—in some cases, substantially so.

But fair pay also helps businesses, not just workers. In sectors like retail and hospitality, they are facing persistent staff shortages—and competitive pay is critical for attracting and retaining good employees. The evidence shows that collective bargaining and sector wide awards improve productivity, reduce turnover and lower hiring and training costs over time. Sector wide agreements can boost business productivity, improve tenure and reduce turnover costs.

The government's penalty rates bill enshrines a clear principle. Penalty and overtime rates cannot be rolled into a single rate of pay if workers are left worse off. It protects against schemes that offer a higher base pay in exchange for forfeiting those penalty rates—evenings, early mornings, weekends—while still allowing flexibility in the award, so long as workers are not financially disadvantaged and so long as workers are not left worse off under these arrangements. What this means is that this legislation protects workers, supports the economy and strengthens the stability of our workforce.

Labor made a promise that we will always protect penalty rates, and this bill delivers on that promise. When we said we would be a government for working Australians, this is what we meant: protecting that safety net and ensuring that people who give up their weekends and holidays are not worse off.

Those opposite claim to support penalty rates, but history tells us a different story. They supported cutting them in 2017, have consistently opposed minimum wage rises and opposed secure jobs and better pay reforms. Now they call for more consultation. But consultation is no substitute for conviction. This is about fairness, about recognising that, if you give up your Sunday to pull beers, your Boxing Day to stock supermarket shelves or your late nights to clean offices, you deserve the pay that goes with it.

In Western Australia, more than a quarter of a million people rely on these protections, and never has it been more important that we do everything we can to protect them. From students in Perth or parents in Peel to young workers in our regions, penalty rates can never be a relic of the past. They are part of what how we value the people who keep our nation running while the rest of us are at home.

This bill says to them, 'You are valued and your time matters.' It protects workers, it supports the economy and it strengthens the stability of our workforce. It sends a clear message: the days of cutting wages are over, and Labor will always protect your penalty rates.