Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The government members of parliament—the Nationals and the Liberals—just do not get it: 700,000 workers are set to have their pay cut just in retail and hospitality alone, and that is before the employers get their way in beauty, in hairdressing, in restaurants and in pubs and clubs. There will be even more workers who will have their pay cut as a result of this government's failure to stand up for low-paid workers if they do not take action. How much a week is it? It is a straight pay cut—$77 per week. We have heard examples, in this place and in the community, about that impact. We have heard from Kerry, a pharmacist assistant who earns about $30,000 a year. She is a part-time worker, and the cut to the Sunday penalty is worth $1,500 to Kerry. We have also heard from Margarita. Margarita is a room attendant in Melbourne who works in one of the most expensive hotels in Melbourne. She earns about $30,000 a year, and her pay cut will be about $2,000 a year. These are people who work for big companies and small companies, not just the small businesses that that mob over there say that this will help—these are also big businesses.

Just to demonstrate how out of touch the MPs opposite are, the Liberal-National MPs have said that this pay cut is a gift to young people, that this will affect people in the margins and that they are pleased with this decision. We cannot go any further than the Minister for Small Business himself, who last week claimed:

I get a travel allowance, others get penalty rates …

To compare an MP's travel allowance—a claim of about $50,000—to someone's entire wage of $30,000 is just outrageous. It demonstrates how out of touch this mob are. This is also the same person who said, not that long ago, that politicians earn less than people in the private sector, and that they did not deserve as much scrutiny. Politicians earn less than people in the private sector? Perhaps the Minister for Small Business is talking about CEOs, because he is definitely not talking about the people who work for small business, he is definitely not talking about retail workers in the private sector and he is definitely not talking about hospitality workers. I would like to see the people in this place turn up for $30,00 year. I reckon we might be a few MPs short if we had to survive on the wages that people in the private sector working in retail and hospitality try to survive on.

This is a government that is desperately out of touch. They are also trying to spread some very dishonest propaganda about how collective and enterprise bargaining works. We cannot go further than the example of McDonald's. As I said, in this place and in my own electorate, you cannot just talk about the Sunday rate. You have to talk about the Monday to Friday rate, and you have to talk about all the allowances. At McDonald's, a full-time senior weekly wage is up to $70 above the award—$70 a week better off overall—because of enterprise bargaining and union negotiations. The EBA also delivers minimum hourly shifts. It delivers family violence leave, compassionate leave and study leave, and anybody working in McDonald's—and there are a lot of younger people working there—takes advantage of their study leave. There are also older people working there.

As the deputy opposition leader said just a moment ago, the majority of the people working in these sectors are women. Some of them are younger women, some of them are older women. Their wage has become the primary income in their households. They are trying to survive. They are trying to pay their bills. They are trying to support their kids. As one retail assistant told me in Tasmania, this is how she pays for her son's basketball. Another retail worker told me that this is how she pays for her daughter's ballet lessons. This government is saying that they are backing big business and they are not stepping in to protect these workers. Instead, they want to see these children miss out on ballet and basketball lessons.

These pay cuts are a wrong decision by the Fair Work Commission. We are calling upon the government to support Labor's bill to protect low-paid workers and to do it now before it becomes a free-for-all and flows through and affects workers in all these other sectors. As we have heard today in the papers, this penalty rate cut alone will give a massive whack to the budget. If the government wants to stop that happening, then they need to step in now. The government needs to support Labor's private member's bill not just for the workers but for the community and for the economy.

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