Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I reject the motion put forward by the member for Longman, and the numerous assertions she makes in its defence. It is more of the same—grandstanding, scaremongering, and reckless, baseless blocking of practical measures designed to advance the interests of Australians. The member for Longman says no to company tax cuts and relief for employers so that they may create jobs. She says no to equalising penalty rates so that employers may offer additional hours and employ more people.

The Fair Work Commissioner has echoed the Productivity Commission in advocating for the modernising of four of 122 awards as a solution to increased pressure on employers. Essentially, the commissioner has determined that the disutility of working on a Sunday is the same as that of working on a Saturday, and finds both should be compensated. I agree that people should be compensated for working on Sundays. And it is true, isn't it, that working on Saturday or Sunday—working on the weekend—is unlikely to be favoured by the majority without some form of sweetener. As the Tourism Accommodation Australia chair said:

For us the objective was to modernise the award, not to abolish penalty rates, but to make it relevant to the 21st century as a means of employing more Australians.

Just for the record, who is the chair of Tourism Accommodation Australia? Old Labor stalwart, the former head of the ACTU, Martin Ferguson. And he is right; when I talk about compensation for work on the weekend, I am referring to loading under the award. Of course, the majority of workers in the hospitality and retail sectors do not receive penalty rates by method of settling pay, and most are not paid under an award but are instead subject to enterprise agreements. So when the member for Longman hopped into Coles when she was campaigning, to thank staff for working over Easter—and she is here with her little Easter egg, card and all the rest of it—she was much the over-eager bunny. Did she tell those workers who she stopped in to thank that the reason they were not getting a full holiday-pay loading was that the union had ripped the guts out of the award? Did she tell them that? I do not think so. I have to laugh at Will, who says in a Facebook comment:

Did the girl serving you mention that, thanks to the unions, Woolworths and Coles get away with paying their workers time and a half on Sundays with no penalty rates on a Saturday as is?

I bet she did not mention that. But it is not their bosses, not the Fair Work Commission, not the government; it is the unions who seem to take the same position on penalty rates as the Labor Party takes on company tax cuts—they support them, but only if they are the ones doing the cutting. The unions, not workers, have a good friend in the member for Longman, who cannot see the wood for the trees.

Mel Tait, the general manager of the Murrumba Downs tavern located in neighbouring Dickson, gave evidence to the Fair Work Commission. The tavern employs 32 people and, according to Mel, if penalty rates were equalised she could provide longer shifts for existing permanent employees and also have more casual and permanent employees. A stone's throw from Longman, Mel could create jobs for Ms Lamb's own constituents with a little support and relief from those company tax cuts that Labor supports—as long as they are not in opposition.

As highlighted in the report of the Fair Work Commission, employers are struggling to stay afloat. Penalty rate equalisation may put a chink in the budget of a minority of workers, but if their employers cannot continue to trade then all talk of pay rates is academic anyway. The member for Longman should know this—but she is too busy drumming up business in my electorate of Petrie, hauling Cat and Erin—presumably the 'industrial powerless' she referred to earlier—in front of a camera to discuss the impact of penalty rate cuts. I do not know Cat and Erin's particulars, but the interview was conducted outside Westfield North Lakes. Those ladies work for a large retailer, but most in that situation are on EBAs—the same EBAs that the union of the members opposite has cut the guts out of. Did the member for Longman tell Cat and Erin that on public holidays they will still receive double time and a half if casual, and double time and a quarter if full-time or permanent part-time? I am doubtful, and the record shows that Labor and the member for Longman do not like to let the facts get in the way of a good story—not in the community, where they are whipping up fear; not in the parliament, where they rely on convenient stats; not on the member for Longman's Facebook page—where, I am told, I am labelled a crim and—even more pathetically from the member for Longman—where my family is brought into her comments without any moderating from her. This is political pointscoring, forsaking the truth and her own credibility in the process—shame on you. (Time expired)

See this speech in context