Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to speak about the government's cleaning guidelines, which they have abolished. What the government knows but will not say publicly is that in a letter from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to the deputy secretary of the Department of Education, on 26 June this year, said:

Cleaning workers on certain government contracts are likely to experience a reduction in wages at the end of their current contracts.

Yet the Prime Minister stood up in this House in question time and said:

I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that no cleaner's pay is reduced.

The minister responsible for this area said publicly that 'No cleaner will have their wages reduced as a result of the guidelines ceasing to apply. So, who is telling the truth? Is it the Prime Minister's own department, saying that workers' wages will be reduced, or is it the Prime Minister. Clearly somebody does not understand how contracting works. When a contract goes out to tender, if you are competing on price, contracts that are competing on award wages will undercut the wages of those cleaners currently being employed under the Clean Start Principles, by the cleaning guidelines. It is time that the Prime Minister came clean and told the truth, told the people what his department already knows, and that is that wages will be cut.

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