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

There was an interesting gem of information today courtesy of Courier-Mail reporter Renee Viellaris in relation to Sunday penalty rates and entitled 'Weekend penalty rates of Bunnings, KFC and Coles Liquor workers slashed'. The report illuminates a shameful situation that sacrifices casual workers—young folk who are working their guts out, often just starting out in the workforce and doing their darnedest to make things work on not a lot of coin. The story reveals deals struck by the Australian Workers' Union—and I acknowledge the influence of the Leader of the Opposition on that union and vice versa—with the now defunct Masters, Coles Liquor Group, KFC and Bunnings. These gave weekday workers a marginal pay rise at the expense of weekend workers. The Masters agreement cut the Sunday hourly rate by more than $5 an hour, from $38.88 to $33.27. The Coles agreement cut the Sunday rate by $7.09. KFC cut it by $7.99 and Bunnings by $1.55.

According to Renee's piece, Labor insiders say unions are willing to do this—to sacrifice the rates of casual weekend workers—because those workers are less likely to join a union. That to me is a compelling demonstration of wrongness and the conflict of interests that exists between the Labor Party and the unions. We have heard often other evidence of this conflict here in this House, but, reading the story, I had another epiphany. Here between the lines of Renee's story was the Labor Party's policy on workers and the businesses that employ them: support business by backing them to slash the pay of those that devote their time to business success; cut company overheads by cutting workers' pay. I'm not going to mention the history of kickbacks, but that seems the most dumbed-down, simplistic and mean-spirited path to choose. There are many roads that lead to business success and longevity as well as to worker satisfaction and prosperity.

I'm proud that the coalition government does not cut corners, that it does not engage in these underhanded negotiations and that it is building a secure and prosperous future. Our strategy is not to rob from workers to pay business; instead, we are cutting taxes on small business so they can grow and employ more Australians. We are growing the economy and generating jobs. More than 239,000 jobs have been created in the last 12 months alone. By contrast, Labor doesn't believe in growing the economy. The opposition leader and his union mates are showing nothing short of hypocrisy when it comes to penalty rates. He has been betraying workers for years—doing deals and trading away penalty rates at the expense of workers—and it's shameful.

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