Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today in support of the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025. This bill is about protecting the people who work when the rest of us don't: the people who serve us for a Sunday lunch to put food in our bellies, the people who restock our shelves at midnight so we can put food on the table, and the people who care for our elderly loved ones on Christmas morning.

These are the Australians doing the early starts, the late finishes and the weekends, so it's hard to believe that their pay is under threat. But this bill puts a stop to that. It locks in protections for more than 2.6 million award-reliant workers. It ensures that penalty rates and overtime rates, which have been hard-earned through sacrifice, cannot be bargained away—not by clever legal manoeuvring, not by corporate proposals dressed up as a pay rise; not now and not ever. Let's be real: when you take away penalty rates, you are directly affecting the ability to pay rent and to buy groceries, and stripping workers of peace of mind. This bill is also about cost-of-living relief. It is about standing up for workers who keep our essential services going long after business hours end and long before most of us wake up.

We've seen attempts to chip away at penalty rates before, and we know who gets hurt. It's not the boardroom executives and it's not the top end of town. The casual worker stacking pallets at the supermarket is who gets hurt. It's the part-time aged-care worker who fills in night shifts. It's the hospo worker who closes at 2 am. These are hardworking people—hardworking people like my mum, who works as a cleaner in a hospital. She, like other Australians, relies on those extra dollars, weekend loadings, overtime and penalty rates just to get by. These extra dollars allow for dinner on the table and ensure individuals don't live pay cheque to pay cheque.

I want to be really clear: the case for this bill is so simple, and the benefits are clear for everybody to see. It's a lifeline for millions of Australian workers. We're talking about hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year in lost income if penalty rates are cut. That's rent, school uniforms and petrol to get to work. For my mum in regional Victoria, that's a trip to Melbourne to visit the grandkids. This is not just extra pocket money; it's the difference between security and struggle.

In Victoria's regional centres, like the Mallee and Nicholls, penalty rates aren't just a bonus; they're survival. These communities have some of the highest rates of award reliance in the country. In sectors like retail, hospitality, aged care and agriculture, workers rely on penalty rates to make ends meet. When Sunday and public holiday rates were cut in 2017, Victoria's rural and regional workers lost between $67 million and $127 million per year. That's income stripped from thousands of households in my home country town of Swan Hill, in Shepparton, in Mildura and in Echuca. It didn't just hurt workers; it hurt small businesses too. With less money to spend locally, local economies took the hit.

This bill is about ensuring history doesn't repeat itself. That's why Labor is acting. It's because, once again, big business has come knocking and they're asking us to rewrite the rules. We've seen the retail employer lobby push for changes that will allow store managers to opt-out of penalty rates in exchange for a 35 per cent pay rise. That might sound generous, but let's just unpack that a bit. That proposal backed by Coles, Woolworths and other large businesses, would scrap overtime and weekend rates for those workers. If that gets through, who's next? We all know how this story goes. First it's the managers, then it's the team leaders and then it's the shop floor. That's why we're closing that door now.

This bill ensures that modern awards can't be varied in a way that reduce or replace penalty or overtime rates. Any attempt to disguise a cut in penalty rates, no matter how it's worded, must be declined if it leaves Australian workers worse off. That is pretty simple. If you work outside regular hours, you should be paid more, not less. We've intervened because the Fair Work Commission was considering proposals that could have permanently altered the penalty rate safety net, and we knew what was at stake.

The Albanese Labor government made a rare submission to fair work urging them to reject those proposals, because we believe in the award safety net and we believe that it needs protecting. This legislation now ensures that the commission must not approve any modern award change that would leave a single worker worse off—not one. That is how seriously we take penalty rates, because penalty and overtime rates are more than a line item in a pay packet. It is about recognition that these workers give up time with family and friends to serve the rest of us, that they sacrifice and that they deserve to be compensated fairly.

Let me remind the chamber what happened last time penalty rates were cut. In 2017, under the coalition government, the commission slashed Sunday and public holiday rates for hundreds of thousands of retail and hospitality workers. Wages went backwards. Lives got harder. And what did we hear from the Liberals? This is the point where you can insert the crickets, because we heard nothing. Even worse than nothing, some people even cheered it on. They said it would create jobs. Unsurprisingly, they were wrong. The evidence is clear. Cutting penalty rates did not create jobs, but it did foster hardship, and now we have the same forces circling again.

It's new packaging, but it's the same old low-blow attack on workers' pay. So we're making the law crystal clear. We're inserting a new section into the Fair Work Act that says: 'Penalty rates and overtime rates in awards can't be reduced'—that's clear—'They can't be substituted with something else that leaves workers worse off.' That's clear. If a proposal does that, it fails. The commission is not required to review all awards, but, if the reward is up for variation, then the new rule applies. It will apply to cases already on foot like the retail and banking awards matters currently before the Fair Work Commission. It means that this bill is urgent and it's necessary.

While some in this chamber are still thinking about what side to take, we've already chosen ours. We're on the side of workers. The coalition, on the other hand, hasn't made up its mind. Their shadow minister has raised concerns about small businesses but has refused to back the bill. Let me say this to those opposite—listen closely—if you support fair pay, vote for this bill. If you care about cost-of-living relief, vote for this bill. If you won't vote for it, then be honest about what that means. It means turning your back on the people who clean our hospitals, who stock your grocery shelves and pour your coffee. Don't claim to stand for working families if you won't stand up for penalty rates.

This legislation delivers exactly what workers need—clear and enforceable safeguards. It still allows for individual flexibility arrangements, as long as, at the end of the day, the worker is better off. It keeps enterprise bargaining in place. It preserves the commission's role in fixing award errors or ambiguities. What it stops is the erosion of wages through tricky variations and legal loopholes. Once penalty rates are gone, they don't come back easily. By the time workers notice, it's too late. We've seen what's happened in the past, so we are acting for the future. This is about respecting the dignity of work; about saying that people who work weekends, nights and holidays deserve more, not less; and about standing with people who serve us while we rest. To the workers who keep this country running at all hours: we see the hours that you give up. We understand the sacrifices that you make, and now we are standing with you.

Let's pass this bill. Let's protect penalty and overtime rates. Let's do the right thing by the people who do right by this country every single day. I commend the bill to the Senate.