Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the retail trade industry is the second largest employment category in Australia;

(b) one third of workers in the retail trade industry are between 15 to 24 years of age;

(c) the Fair Work Commission's (FWC's) decision to cut penalty rates in the retail trade will disproportionately affect young people;

(d) the take home pay of young retail workers will be severely hit as a result of the FWC's decision to cut Sunday and public holiday penalty rates for young retail workers;

(e) cutting penalty rates for young retail workers increases cost of living pressures as many are studying during the week; and

(f) young retail workers will have to work longer hours for the same pay, with less time to study;

(2) condemns Government Members and Senators who called for cuts to penalty rates and their continuous pressuring of the FWC to reduce penalty rates; and

(3) calls on:

(a) Government Members and Senators to stand with Labor to protect low paid workers take home pay; and

(b) the House to support Labor's Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017, to amend the Fair Work Act 2009.

The cut to penalty rates will hurt more than half a million Australians, and many of those hurt will be young Australians working in shops, supermarkets and department stores. These are sons and daughters. We have a duty to offer them a better start in life, not a harder one, but we do not seem to be making a good fist of it. Houses are more unaffordable than they have ever been. Reliable and affordable public transport is next to non-existent in regional communities. Education is falling behind internationally. Apprenticeships are in steep decline. Healthcare costs are rising sharply. As for jobs, those that have not been automated are being casualised and contracted out, with exploitation becoming the norm rather than the exception. And now, for those young people who are in work, many in the retail sector, there will be a cut to penalty rates for working Sundays and public holidays, days that most of us get to take off and spend with family and friends.

There are some in this parliament, and certainly some in the corridors of big business, who seem to believe that a proper wage should not matter to young people, that somehow work for young people is all about gaining experience and character building and that a wage is some sort of bonus. When did we start pretending that being paid is not the primary motivation of being employed? When it comes to pay, young people get a pretty raw deal. The younger you are, the less you earn, even if the work you do is the same as someone over the age of 21.

Let's not forget that in Australia you are not an adult worker until you are 21. You can vote at 18, go to war at 18 and die for your country at 18, but you are not an adult worker until you are 21. A 15-year-old casual retail assistant earns $10.94 an hour. That rises to $17.50 an hour on Sundays and to $24.06 on public holidays. This is a low wage already, yet it is about to go even lower because of the Fair Work Commission's decision to cut Sunday and public holiday penalty rates—a decision backed by those opposite.

Young people between the ages of 15 and 21 do not work just to earn a little pocket money. Many of them work to put food on the family table or to support themselves while studying. That was my own experience. I lived at home with my mum throughout high school, but my 24 hours every weekend at Hungry Jack's for nearly seven years helped my mum, a school cleaner, with groceries and bills. I paid for my own car and my own petrol, my own clothes and, ultimately, my own text books and other university expenses. But, despite all that, I had the luxury of living at home with a mum who cooked and cleaned and did my laundry. Many thousands of other young people are fending for themselves on wages that are already low. They cannot afford $77 a week to be stripped from their weekly pay.

The Conversation reports that as many as 40 per cent of young people rely on penalty rates to survive. The member for Gilmore told her local paper that this decision was a gift because it opened the door for more hours of employment. Can I say to the member for Gilmore that it is not a gift to be told to work 10 hours tomorrow for the same pay that you receive for eight hours today. That is not job creation; it is a pay cut.

The young people of this country deserve better. They deserve respect for the work that they do and the contributions they make and they deserve a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, just like every other Australian worker. This parliament has a chance to stand behind the young people of this country. It can, and it should, vote to pass the amendments to the Fair Work Act that the Leader of the Opposition moved in the House this morning. These are amendments that will protect Australians' pay from being cut.

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