Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion, forthwith:

That the House:

(1)   recalls and records the solemn commitment given by the Prime Minister to Alan Jones on Radio 2GB on 4 August 2005 that:

“I mean some people are going to have to work public holidays

… it would be absurd and unfair and unreasonable if somebody has to work on a public holiday that that person isn’t compensated by being paid whatever it is, the double time or the time and a half … those arrangements are going to continue …”

(2)   notes that appropriate compensation includes things like penalty rates and public holiday leave loadings;

(3)   notes that since the Government’s extreme industrial relations changes commenced on 27 March 2006, a single sentence in an Agreement can remove all entitlements to public holiday pay, penalty rates and overtime pay, and that the Government’s own statistics show:

(a)

64 per cent of assessed AWAs have removed penalty rates;

(b)

63 per cent have removed leave loadings;

(c)

52 per cent have removed shiftwork loadings; and

(d)

41 per cent did not contain gazetted public holidays;

(4)   affirms its support for the Prime Minister’s August 2005 commitment that employees should receive adequate compensation for working on public holidays; and

(5)   calls on the Government to immediately restore adequate compensation for Australian employees who work on public holidays, thereby holding the Prime Minister to his solemn promise to Alan Jones and the Australian people.

You do not support family values if you do not support decent holidays. That is all there is to it. This government has walked away—

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