Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

This morning, cleaners gathered on the lawns of Parliament House to mark International Cleaners Day and the 25th anniversary of the first such event, held in Los Angeles.

The rally was also a public showing of Commonwealth-employed cleaners in their fight to be paid a modest wage increase. These are some of the lowest-paid workers in Australia. They are people who often work extraordinary hours and who do jobs that many others would not do. Many of them are also new arrivals, who do not always know their entitlements, who need their jobs and who are more likely to be exploited, as has been exposed by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Just as unethical employers try to take advantage of cleaners so too did the Abbott government when last year it cut the Commonwealth Cleaners Guidelines, making cleaners in Commonwealth buildings over $6,800 worse off each year on average. Typically of the Abbott government, it wants to balance its budget mess on the backs of Australia's lowest-income families.

I call on the government to show some fairness and to show some decency: reinstate the Commonwealth Cleaners Guidelines and provide cleaners with decent conditions and a just and fair wage increase.

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