Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to begin my remarks where my colleague the member for Hindmarsh left off by thanking the cleaners who clean this building and look after us so well in our offices. As has been pointed out, cleaners are very much an invisible workforce. They come in the night or the very early morning and they disappear, leaving our workplaces fresh, spick and span and ready for a new day. We thank them very much. I do not know the names of the people who clean my office here, but I would like to thank Michelle, who cleans my office in Albury. I understand she is a single mother with two children, working in her own business and having a red-hot go working, I think, well over 40 hours a week. I suspect that she has trouble getting others to work with her, given the nature of what she does and the very strong job market in the town where we live in Albury.

Cleaners deserve acknowledgement of their hard work, and I think that is the No. 1 thing that I would like to recognise today. In our very cerebral activities, a lot of what we do is quite comfortable and the heart rate does not necessarily increase—or not from exertion, anyway. We do not always realise that cleaning is a strenuous, difficult, backbreaking task and, depending on the circumstances, can have some serious occupational health and safety aspects. So a safe workplace is absolutely vital for the cleaners who work in Australia. We have traditionally seen problems with attracting people to the cleaning industry. There is a concern that some businesses cannot get enough cleaners at all. Of course, it is not perceived to be an attractive industry, due to the hard nature of the work. The shifts are often short—two to four hours—and they vary throughout all hours of the day and night.

In looking at the Fair Work hours component of this year’s campaign, I understand that, in many ways, two hours is not enough, and to get yourself ready for two hours work a night will not suit many people and the amount you earn will be insufficient. But we have to be careful that we do not institute something that is far too inflexible and that we therefore do not sacrifice the flexibility that makes this type of casual work more suitable for some. We need to better understand the needs of all parties and individual responsibility in making arrangements in this way. But, having said that, I recognise that many cleaners are migrant workers. They are women from non-English-speaking backgrounds. They often have dependent children living at home. Cleaning has been one of those industries that has offered them a prime way to enter the mainstream workforce and to build a future for themselves through hard work.

Of course, women—particularly, as I said, migrant women—are not always in a good position to negotiate with an employer, so I accept the points made by the members opposite and, as shadow minister for women, am very concerned that we do look after women at all levels of society. The wages for cleaning will not surprise anyone. They are rather low: $15 to $18 an hour compared with $13.75 as the minimum wage. Some other statistics are that one in four cleaners say they have inadequate time to do their work and that one in five cleaners had to use the same mops for the toilets as other areas. Some cleaners were told to cut costs, including cutting their sponges in half to save supplies. That is not good enough. Conditions at work are vitally important. The impact of these conditions have led to lack of training, security risks, an unstable and transient workforce and occupational health and safety problems. So let us remember this international day for cleaners. I think this day has been going for four years now. I think it should continue into the future. I think we should take time to think, as I said, of the invisible workforce that looks after us so well and remember that it is a lot more fun, if I can use that word, cleaning your own house, your own car and your own things than it is working for somebody else.

Debate interrupted.

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