Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to speak on the appropriation bills. I note that I am following the honourable member for Blair. I want to compliment him as he is one of, I think, three members of the Liberal Party who have courageously stood up and said that a merger between the National Party in Queensland and the Liberals is the way to go. We know that today that has been abandoned, but let me say to the member for Blair, ‘Congratulations; I think as times goes by you will have the last laugh.’ Like the member for Blair, I also want to comment on our trade deficit situation, but I will do so a little later.

Mr Deputy Speaker, it will come as no surprise to you that the fate of the employees of Spotlight stores is making the national news and, particularly, the new store that now is proposed to be opened at Shop Mart in Zoe Place, Mount Druitt, I think on 15 or 16 June this year. The Prime Minister has said that the 6,000 Spotlight employees—the mums and dads who are working in Spotlight—are facing, immediately and over time, a loss of significant parts of their conditions of employment. Let me just run through those conditions: no provision for any penalty rates, no provision for any overtime, the elimination of paid rest breaks, the elimination of breaks between shifts, the elimination of maximum and minimum shift lengths and a cap on the number of consecutive days worked. For all this, they will be paid an extra 2c an hour.

In question time, the Prime Minister has suggested, firstly, that the opening of the Mount Druitt store is somehow a function of his new IR laws. For the sake of comparison, I could take China, Thailand or some other country, but I will just take India. In 2003 Indian workers were earning approximately US80c an hour, which equates to $A1.05. Is anyone suggesting that, because of the low rates of pay for workers in India, we will now see 1,000 Spotlight stores bloom all over India, China, the Philippines or Indonesia? Of course not. Mr Deputy Speaker, if I tried to run an argument by you that new stores are opened based on the rates of pay of the workers who will work in them, you would laugh me out of court. You open a new store where there is a market and, to be fair, workers’ rates of pay are not taken into account when considering and planning to do so.

The critical point in the Spotlight argument is one that the Prime Minister totally evades. Yes, it is good news that we are getting 30 new workers. I am thrilled about it. I certainly regret they are going to be so low paid, but I am always pleased to see people enter into employment. However, they are entering into employment on the backs of the employees in 100 other stores—that is, 6,000 employees—losing all of those conditions: no penalty rates, no overtime, the elimination of rest breaks, no breaks between shifts, no maximum and minimum shift lengths and a cap on the number of consecutive days work. For all that, they get an extra 2c an hour, but, compared to the award, they are actually losing $90 a week. That is what the essential unfairness is.

It is true to say that not every one of those 6,000 employees will face that dilemma immediately. We know what is happening in Coffs Harbour. We know of the employee there—a lifelong supporter of John Howard—who thinks she has been bitterly deceived by him and these extreme IR changes. Every one of those 6,000 employees is going to face this loss. My friend and colleague the member for Calwell knows that people who work in Spotlight stores do not earn very much money. They are not the highest paid workers in the land, but what the government is saying is these 6,000 employees should take a $90 a week pay cut. Families are facing unprecedented prices for petrol to run the family car, to use the car to go backwards and forwards. In my part of Western Sydney and in Western Sydney in general, you will always find a family that has a car, and often two cars. The car is required for work, it is required to drop kids off at school, and it is often required so mum can go to work. So they are really facing a great impost.

The other thing I want to point out is interest rates. Just before the budget was delivered, we had a 0.25 per cent increase in interest rates. Mortgages in Western Sydney are very large. They are not as high as the inner city, they are not as high as the North Shore and they are not as high as the eastern suburbs of Sydney, but the honourable member for Lindsay would agree with me when I say that for us in Western Sydney they seem to be particularly high for families moving into a new home. And people are very sensitive to the slightest rate increase. It is those same families, those same poor workers not on flash money, who have had an interest rate rise and who are facing increasing petrol prices and a loss of $90 a week in their take-home pay.

This budget, because it has lavishly spent something like $58 billion over four years, has most commentators predicting the certainty of a future interest rate rise. Depending on what is happening in America over the next 12 to 18 months, one could almost say it has also called into question a second rate rise. In a period of 12 to 18 months, we are therefore going to be faced with mortgage rates going up by not just 0.25 per cent but three times that—0.75 per cent. The increase before the budget, on a modest mortgage of $200,000, meant an increase of $32 a month and $384 a year. The budget, I regret to say, has guaranteed another interest rate rise and the possibility of a third.

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