Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am opposed to the passage of this bill quite simply because it is unfair. It impacts on vulnerable employees and it cuts community standards of entitlement in the case of redundancy payments, payments for unpaid annual leave, unpaid wages, unpaid superannuation in the case of a company or an employer going broke—becoming bankrupt or having a company liquidated. It unfairly impacts on the most vulnerable in our community. The bill should not pass in the form that it is in.

Some years ago I represented a greenkeeper who worked for a local bowling club. This particular greenkeeper had worked for this club diligently for 18 years. He had done his apprenticeship with the club. He had spent basically all his working life as a dedicated and loyal employee of the local bowling club. He found out that the club was in financial trouble and eventually the club was liquidated. Of course, then it was discovered that the club had some big debts—and, naturally, under Australian law, the principal creditors were the banks! So the banks took most of the money. There was very little left for the employees. So here you had a greenkeeper that had worked for the particular local bowling club for most of his life—for 18 years of loyal service—he had a young family with kids and he got nothing. He got nothing, at the end of the day, after the company had been liquidated and paid its debts. This is a person who had accumulated pro rata long service leave. He was eligible for the 13 weeks of long service leave that accrues to a person on a pro rata basis, after 10 years of service, under New South Wales law. Had he left or been dismissed under normal circumstances, or left because of illness or injury, he would have been paid that long service leave as a pro rata payment. It is an entitlement of that person. And let me tell you: it was a hell of a lot more than 16 weeks worth of pay. He had annual leave owing to him for the years he had worked for the bowling club. Under normal circumstances he would have been entitled to a redundancy payment somewhere in the vicinity of at least two weeks per year of service at the time; the community standard was probably three weeks worth of service. His superannuation, he found out later on, had not been paid for months. He got close to nothing. What is the maximum he would be awarded under the scheme this parliament is about to pass here, under a Liberal Abbott government? The maximum would be sixteen weeks payment instead of all those entitlements he would have got under normal circumstances. He worked there for 18 years. That is less than one week per year of service.

In my book that is simply not fair. I do not think it is fair in anyone's book. I dare anyone on that side of the parliament to get up and say what they are putting through here is fair for a person like that, who had worked loyally for a company for 18 years—particularly given that, if we lose our jobs here or are voted out, we get a hell of a lot more than 16 weeks as a minimum redundancy payment. Why should we get something the average Australian is not entitled to under this legislative change we are making tonight? We are going to say to the people of Australia: 'Well, it's okay for us politicians. We'll get three months worth of pay.' I think the minimum entitlement is $30,000 if you are voted out and lose your seat at an election; but we are going to cut the entitlement for every other Australian back to a maximum entitlement of 16 weeks should the company go bust and be liquidated with nothing there for them. That is simply not fair.

I am not going to be part of that. I am not going to put my hand up and say, 'It's okay for us to continue to get our entitlements in the form of redundancy—up to $30,000—but we're going to cut the money back for other employees.' That is simply not fair and that is why Labor, when we were in government, introduced the Fair Entitlements Guarantee which replaced the GEER scheme. The GEER scheme was originally an initiative of the Howard government but, again, it was only a minimum entitlement and it did not cover community standards. When Labor came to government we ensured that the scheme was amended to reflect community standards, and the community standard enshrined in the legislation was up to 13 weeks of unpaid wages; annual leave payments; long service leave accrued; payment in lieu of notice to a maximum of five weeks; and a redundancy payment of a maximum of four weeks per year of service. That is what the community standard is. That is what ordinary employees in most jobs, if they lose their job and the company is liquid, will get as a severance payment. It is a fair standard and it is what Labor enshrined in the legislation. This scheme being introduced by the Abbott government cuts that community standard, that fair entitlement, back to a maximum of 16 weeks payment in total. That is unfair. It is below the community standard.

Going back to the greenkeeper—the example I mentioned earlier—a person who has given 18 years of service getting 16 weeks payment is simply unfair. What does this reform do?

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