Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I came to this place with the belief that there are good people on both sides of this House. That belief was borne out of my experiences in the 1980s as a journalist in the press gallery, where I watched Liberal people like Senators Fred Chaney and Chris Puplick, and the then member for Mackellar, Jim Carlton, support the Hawke government on improving the safety net for the most vulnerable, and in lifting the standard of living for workers. So it is disappointing to see that those opposite are now so relentless in their ideology that they do not seem to stop and think about the consequences of their failure to protect low-paid workers in our community, which is why I am pleased to support the motion by the member for Longman, who has no trouble seeing the impact of the Fair Work Commission's decision to cut Sunday and public holiday penalty rates for the hospitality award, among others.

I would not normally call myself a traditionalist. But, to me, Sundays and public holidays should be protected as a day of rest, or of being with family and friends. My family has always been full of small business people. I grew up with my parents the newsagents, my uncle the pharmacist, my other uncles the real estate agents, and in the next generation we have had a lot of shift workers—my husband is a journalist, and my cousins are junior doctors—and it was not long before some of those shift workers became self-employed in some way. And the third generation—my children and my cousins' children—picked up part-time jobs, which inevitably meant they worked late nights and weekends on top of everything else they did. I understand the need for employers to have access to workers on Sundays and public holidays, and I understand the need for workers to be able to access shifts that mean they may have Monday to Friday clear for other activities, including parenting. But I also understand that Sundays and public holidays are a really important lull or pause in a week where, in fact, family and friends might get a look-in, and where multiple generations of a family can be at the same table at the same time. And if you cannot be there, I think you deserve additional compensation for missing out on the stuff that connects us as humans.

So let's talk specifically about hospitality. The first person to contact me about the impact of the Fair Work Commission's cut was Linda. Linda works at a swish hotel in the upper Blue Mountains. She has not always worked in hospitality but has a retail background, among other things, and has now re-trained as a chef. She works unsociable hours, but the low hourly pay is boosted by the penalty rates on weekends and holidays. Well, no longer—Linda says she is not sure what she will cut. Will it be getting her car serviced? Will it be paying insurance on her house in a bushfire-prone zone? Will it be fixing a broken fridge? Who knows. But here is the mark of a loyal employee: she does not blame her employer for the cut, although she is disappointed that their view is that it will boost profit rather than allow them to employ more people. She recognises that this is the government's fault for failing to stand up for low-paid workers. Another person I have spoken to about this is Robert. He works full-time in retail, and he says that his employer has no intention of putting on extra staff. So this is the message workers are being given by some employers: if we get the chance to pay you less, we will take it.

Of course, it is not the same for all businesses in my electorate. Leah, who owns The Sweetest Thing lolly shop and gelato bar in Springwood, has a different view. With a seven-day-a-week business, Leah is really grateful to her staff for being willing to work on Sundays so she can be with her kids. Leah plans to keep paying the current Sunday and public holiday rates. This view is shared by the Glenbrook liquor store, and I note that in some states the RSL has already come out saying that their loyal workers do not deserve a pay cut. My experience with small business owners is that they want to do the right thing by their employees, even when governments do not.

Let's think about the impact of that $77 per week cut from each worker's Sunday pay packet. Over a year, it is more than $4,000 per worker. In Macquarie, there are around 10,000 workers in the food and accommodation sectors and in retail. They obviously do not all work every Sunday, and they will not all be affected from 1 July. If they are lucky enough to be in a unionised workforce, they will be protected. The data shows that in the retail sector, union-negotiated EBAs have delivered weekly wages $90 higher than the award rates. So they are the sorts of improvements that they already have, plus the protections from this sort of legislation. Over time, it is going to undermine the entire wages structure. From my calculations, it looks to be millions that will come out of the pockets of workers in Macquarie, and that is money we will not have to spend in cafes, restaurants, pharmacies or hairdressers. I worry about that economic contraction in my community.

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