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

In the few minutes that I have I would like to say that it is quite surprising that it has taken so long for this bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Repeal of 4 Yearly Reviews and Other Measures) Bill 2017, to come before the House. A lot of us remember in the last parliament this government declaring with great fanfare that they were going to review the Fair Work Act and declaring that they were going to get out there and give the power back to employers and restore the balance in the Fair Work Act. The Productivity Commission actually came to Bendigo and asked lots of questions about penalty rates and they were actually pushing the idea that penalty rates needed to be cut. They spent a day in Bendigo and they went to a lot of places. One of the recommendations they made was around the awards and how often they should be reviewed. Since the Productivity Commission handed down their report we have virtually seen nothing from this government. They have sat back and they have allowed Fair Work to go ahead and cut penalty rates. It is 11 days now until that pay cut kicks in.

But the government have finally moved on this issue about reviewing the award every four years. When you have a situation where the union movement, the ACTU—the peak union body—is recommending in accordance with the Productivity Commission that the four-year mandatory review be scrapped and when industry groups like AIG and employees are recommending that it be scrapped, you would think that it would be done pretty quickly and that the government would have said, 'Great; we've received the report and we'll immediately proceed to do that.' But that was not the case. We have seen the government drag this out and finally, now, it has come before the House. It is disappointing that, when there is agreement in the Fair Work space, the government sit back and do nothing. It is similar to how they have behaved around penalty rates.

I support the amendment that has been moved by the member for Gorton around penalty rates, and I just want to remind people in this House what is about to happen. Seven hundred thousand workers—people in hospitality, people in retail, people in pharmacy—will have their penalty rates cut in 11 days. We are talking about some retail workers losing up to $6,000 a year because their Sunday penalty rates will be cut. Equally, people on the highest incomes—including the Prime Minister—will actually receive a tax cut of about $6,000 a year. Yet—

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