House debates

Monday, 15 October 2018

Bills

Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018; Second Reading

12:38 pm

Photo of Milton DickMilton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Every day is just another day that working people in this country are being ripped off by a government that doesn't care and is not interested in helping millions of Australians who are seeing their wages go backwards. The facts couldn't be clearer. When inequality is at a 75-year high and wage growth is at an all-time low, what do the government do? They support a cut in penalty rates for 700,000 Australians who, for the past two years, have seen cuts to their take-home pay and who will continue to do so under the Morrison government. This comes off the back of 20 consecutive quarters of falling wage growth in the private sector, where wage growth has now plummeted to just 1.9 per cent. The government will tell you that we have turned a corner on this, but the truth is we are still at all-time historical lows, with workers in this country paying the price for this government's inaction. Under this government, there are no signs that this is going to change anytime soon. In fact, it's only going to get worse.

On the other hand, this important piece of legislation that we're debating today, the Fair Work Amendment (Restoring Penalty Rates) Bill 2018, introduced by the Leader of the Opposition, will protect workers' take-home pay in the future. I'm proud to rise today to state unequivocally my support for penalty rates and the protection of take-home pay. On this side of the House our united team is so committed to ensuring Australian workers get a fair go that, if we are privileged to be elected, a Shorten Labor government will in our first 100 days restore penalty rates and legislate so that they can never be cut again. This is in stark contrast to the government, which is led by a Prime Minister who voted eight times to support cuts to penalty rates.

Despite what those opposite think, penalty rates are not a luxury. They are what pay the bills and put food on the table for over 10,000 workers in my electorate, who are losing up to $77 a week. This includes those who work in retail, which is the third-biggest industry in my community, employing 6,976 local workers. A further 3,612 employed in the food and hospitality sector are also feeling the pain of cuts to penalty rates. These are real people who are losing real money under this government.

As the Leader of the Opposition has previously stated, cutting penalty rates means that working people have less money to spend in small businesses, in the shops and in the cafes; cutting penalty rates dampens confidence and deepens inequality; and cutting penalty rates is bad news for young people and bad news for Australian women. At the current pace under this government, Australia is 150 years away from closing the gender pay gap. Those opposite should come down from their shining ivory towers, get out in the community and speak to those who are being affected by these cuts rather than trying to hand out billions of dollars of taxpayers' money to big businesses and the big banks. We know it is in their DNA.

When these cuts to penalty rates first came in I was joined by the member for Bendigo at a community penalty rates forum in Goodna in my electorate of Oxley. We were joined by dozens of workers, who voiced their frustration and disappointment with the LNP government in supporting the decision to cut penalty rates. At the forum we heard from people like Donna, who has fought tooth and nail to put food on the table only to be given a kick in the guts by this government cutting her weekly wage. These are the stories of real people.

Whereas, on the other hand, we have seen members of the government who are living in denial and have been too busy fighting with each other for the past five years to care how this affects everyday Australians. My community does not deserve this. The working men and women of Australia who work on a Sunday deserve their full penalty rates, not a pay cut. What is most insulting to these workers is that the day after these tax cuts first came in the government gave a millionaire a tax cut of $16,400. In my electorate, in places like Redbank and Redbank Plains, people who work in retail and hospitality got a pay cut while millionaires living on the North Shore got a tax cut of $16,000. How on earth is that fair? How on earth can members of the government look anyone in the community in the eye and say, 'We've got your back'? They don't.

The Leader of the Opposition and Labor have not given up on workers. I will not give up on workers in my electorate and I will continue to fight these pay cuts every single day until the election. Today I call on the government to do the right thing. Stop looking at yourselves, stop fighting amongst yourselves and start looking after the workers of this country and making sure that their penalty rates are restored.

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