Julia Irwin (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last Friday I joined a rally and picket line of retail workers employed by businesses at Liverpool Westfield. The workers are protesting a $3 per day parking charge imposed by Westfield on employees of the centre. In 1991, the original development consent for the centre required Westfield to provide free parking. Westfield now claim that, as the latest development consent is silent on the matter, they are able to impose the charge. This is just another way in which the conditions of employees are being eroded in Australia. Three dollars a day may not sound like much to some people, but, for low-paid retail workers with only part-time hours, $3 a day adds up to a lot. To a working mother employed for four hours a day for five days, that adds up to $720 a year—or nearly 2½ weeks pay—at her $306 a week wage. For an 18-year-old student working three shifts, it will cost $432 a year or four weeks pay. This is nothing but a greedy grab by Westfield at the cost of low-paid workers. It is another taste of what is to come under John Howard’s extreme industrial relations laws.

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