Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My statement under standing order 143(c) is in relation to the member for Dawson's private member's bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay Of All Workers) Bill 2017, which was referred to the Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training for an advisory report on 22 June 2017. This bill does a number of things, including amending the Fair Work Act 2009, providing that any determination made by the Fair Work Commission on or after 22 February 2017 is of no effect and ensuring that penalty rates cannot be reduced in any future greenfields or non-greenfields enterprise agreement if an employee is worse off than they would've been under the award by virtue of the fact that the employee works only or mainly on days on which penalty rates were paid.

The committee notes that the two unions—United Voice, which represents hospitality workers, and the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association, representing retail workers—challenged the Fair Work Commission's decision, referred to in the bill, in the Federal Court. On 11 October last year, a full panel of five Federal Court judges upheld the commission's decision.

Our committee further notes that the Senate Education and Employment References Committee recently reported on matters relating to penalty rates and that the same Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee recently reported on Senator Rhiannon's Fair Work Amendment (Pay Protection) Bill 2017.

The committee has considered the bill. We've taken into account the decision of the Federal Court and the work of the Senate education and employment references and legislation committees and we feel that, as there are no issues requiring a formal report, an inquiry into the bill by this committee would not be a productive use of parliamentary resources. On those grounds the committee seeks to discharge its obligation to report on the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay Of All Workers) Bill 2017.

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