Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to rise to support the member for La Trobe's motion. In doing so, I would like to congratulate her for highlighting the really key issues that surround penalty rates. It has become quite obvious to me, while listening to this debate, that members on the other side of this parliament do not understand the issue of what it means to workers to actually work on public holidays and do not understand low-paid workers who rely on penalty rates so they can just survive. It is all very well to argue about the price of a shirt on a Monday and on a Saturday, but I would like to respectfully argue that any retailer factors in that cost when they are working our their margins.

People on low incomes really rely on the penalty rates they receive, for working at night or for working on a Saturday or a Sunday, to be able to meet their mortgages. Many on the other side do not understand that. They just do not get it. They do not get the fact that taking away penalty rates is a direct assault on the take-home pay of hundreds of thousands of Australia's lowest paid workers. If you were to take away penalty rates that would immediately result in a significant drop in their standard of living. These are not people who are on $100,000 or $200,000 or even $80,000 a year. These are people that battle each and every day to put food on the table, but the opposition argues that these lower paid workers should not receive penalty rates.

I would also like to put on the table that there are many workers who work in essential services. In actual fact I have a daughter-in-law who is a nurse and has worked over the years many a night shift. She has worked on Christmas Day, when she has had young children. The members on the other side of this House are arguing about people like her—so all those nurses that go along and work in accident and emergency departments and all those nurses that go along and look after the sick in hospitals and all those police who are out in the community and all the fire service workers who are out there keeping us safe on those very special days and all those people who are unable to be there for Christmas lunch—and I say to them it is not all about business. Business is important and we need businesses as employers but we also need workers to work in those businesses and for workers to have money to spend.

If workers' wages are reduced by taking away penalty rates, that will impact on businesses as well. It is not all about pushing workers' wages down to the lowest possible level.

Listening to the debate here today, that is what those in the opposition want to do. They have got no respect for workers. All they would like to do is keep wages low and increase employers' margins. They would like to remove the existing safety nets and entitlements. Every time an opposition member rises to speak on any industrial relations issue, they always attack workers' conditions. I have been in this parliament quite a while now and I have never heard a member of the opposition stand up and say that workers deserve a better deal. To be quite frank, opposition members do not support workers, they do not believe they should penalty rates, they do not acknowledge the fact that they should be compensated for working on those special days and they do not understand how important it is for workers to be able to earn that little extra money that they need to pay their mortgage and put food on the table.

I would like to conclude by congratulating the member for La Trobe for bringing this to the parliament and put on the table the fact that I oppose 100 per cent the removal or undermining of penalty rates. I suggest that opposition members start to rethink their position on this issue.

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