Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to join with my Labor colleagues today in highlighting the importance of penalty rates to the lives of 4.5 million workers who rely on them to pay the bills and raise their children. Penalty rates have been an important feature of the Australian industrial relations system for more than 100 years. In 1909, penalty rates were first awarded to workers as compensation for being made to work at inconvenient times and to act as a deterrent against long or abnormal hours being used by employers. These reasons for the original awarding still stand true today. It is fair that workers who give up their Saturday, Sunday or public holidays to work, usually to deliver services others can enjoy, are awarded compensation. It is also fair that workers who work through the night are adequately compensated for the sacrifice that they and their families make.

The flawed argument that penalty rates are redundant because Australia now operates in a 24/7 cycle is not backed up by the facts. Look at the big banks, the stock market, financial institutions, schools, courts and, indeed, parliaments. They are not open on weekends. About 70 per cent of the workforce does not work on the weekends or evenings. That number has been steady since the 1990s.

Penalty rates form a critical part of the income of many workers, including nurses and emergency services personnel; retail and hospitality workers; manufacturing industry employees; and service sector, tourism and transport industry employees. Many mums and dads give up weekends, Christmas and every other major public holiday with their families to work night shifts or long and unsociable hours just so they can support their families, pay for their kids' sport or save for a brief holiday. For some, it is how they pay the mortgage and put dinner on the table. Students often rely on penalty rates to help them get through university—to pay for textbooks, fees, petrol for their cars or weekly transport tickets. When it comes to low-paid jobs in retail, hospitality and the service sector, which often require work at odd hours, penalty rates can increase incomes to levels that allow single parents or parents working second jobs to pay the bills and raise their kids.

Beyond the potential income loss to individual workers, we know there would be major secondary impacts for local economies if workers' disposable incomes were reduced. This is particularly relevant for rural and regional areas, like my electorate of Newcastle. Research by the McKell Institute has estimated that regional New South Wales would take an economic hit of up to $315 million every year if penalty rates were scrapped. More worrying for small businesses in regional Australia would be the loss of $11 million in disposable income that would normally be spent in their local shops and on services.

While some members opposite insist that the government does not really have a plan to cut penalty rates, every time the issue is raised we have government MPs lining up to bag penalty rates with false arguments about the need to abolish them—like the member for Mayo, who said:

We cannot go on in a society where we are charging people on a day which is a normal operating day, double what you would on any other.

and the member for Mitchell, who said:

I mean, the Sunday rate comes from an era when Sunday trading was unusual. Today it's the busiest time of the week and it does affect many small enterprises.

Of course, Sundays are not like Mondays; they are not an ordinary operating day. If they were, the electorate offices of the members for Mayo and Mitchell would be open for business on Sundays too. The interesting thing is that voters in key coalition seats actually agree with Labor that penalty rates should stay the same or, in fact, increase. A ReachTEL poll found that in Dickson, the seat held by Minister Dutton, 78 per cent thought penalty rates should stay the same or increase. In the Deputy Prime Minister's seat of New England, 70 per cent do not want change.

Weekend work is taxing on relationships and health. Weekend pay should reflect that. Australia is facing the lowest wage growth in 25 years, yet Malcolm Turnbull and his ministers are talking about cutting the income of low-paid workers. Labor will fight the Turnbull government every step of the way to protect decent working conditions that 4.5 million Australians rely on to pay their bills and raise their children. Rather than a race to the bottom on wages, Labor believes the government should invest in the high-skilled, high-wage, decent jobs of the future. (Time expired)

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