Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

As the parliamentary secretary knows, in this place if you snooze you lose. I am happy to go first and perhaps, when he does not answer my first question, he will get some of his opening statement jammed into that five minutes allowed for his response.

This is a good opportunity to talk about the appropriations bill as it relates to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. As the parliamentary secretary would know, to provide a whole-of-government focus on the deregulation agenda, the Office of Deregulation was created within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on 18 September 2013 and remains in the organisational structure of the department today. The parliamentary secretary would also be aware that in the autumn red tape repeal day of 2014 the government abolished the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines, which regulate the minimum pay and conditions for cleaners. As a result, from 1 July 2014—that is, between the government's first budget and their second budget—some of Australia's lowest-paid workers had their wages cut.

At the Department of Foreign Affairs, for example, cleaners have had their wages cut by $6,000 a year. Cleaners at the Department of Immigration and Border Protection are now receiving $2 less an hour, which means their annual wages will be reduced by thousands of dollars, while cleaners at Parliament House are facing a wage cut because of the abolition of the guidelines and the Clean Start rates. It should not have to be pointed out to members in this place that these are the people who clean our own offices—people we see around the building, people we interact with, people we spend a lot of time with. The government's deregulation agenda has had, is having and will have a very direct and very substantial impact on their take-home pay and their ability to pay the bills and raise their kids.

These wage cuts fly in the face of the Prime Minister's promise just over a year ago today that abolishing the guidelines would not affect cleaners' pay. He said:

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

That was in question time on 16 June 2014. On Monday, at the front of this building on International Cleaners Day, I was proud to join so many colleagues from our side of the House, and indeed some of the crossbenchers as well, to stand with the cleaners who clean this building, to stand with people who just want a fair go. They are just doing their job; they do not want their wages cut. They do a fantastic job.

Mr Porter interjecting—

I am surprised that the other parliamentary secretary is interjecting at this point. I would have thought that he would agree that they do a fantastic job in this building. I am surprised he would object to that point. They do deserve a fair go, they deserve respect and they deserve fair wages and conditions as well.

Given that this government views cleaners' wages as red tape, my question is: will the PM&C Office of Deregulation conduct a review this year of the impacts of this particular measure in their deregulation agenda? Can the parliamentary secretary inform the House: how many cleaners are affected? How much money are they losing? And can he tell us the Office of Deregulation's estimates of how much money is being saved from this budget as a result of taking the wages out of the pockets of some of Australia's lowest paid workers?

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