James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the second reading of the Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2022. I had the opportunity to speak on a motion on the principle of paid family and domestic violence leave—it was moved by the member for Paterson, from memory—in the last sitting week, so I won't revisit the comments I made in the chamber regarding my support for the principle. The substance of this bill, within that principle, is enshrining in the National Employment Standards something that's been established through a recent Fair Work Commission decision regarding paid, rather than unpaid, family and domestic violence leave.

We had the Fair Work Commission undertake an inquiry, and they handed down the decision back in March 2018, as they do when it comes to those that are on an award. Around two million Australians, from memory, as the most recent data indicates, are on some form of award. The Fair Work Commission made a decision in March 2018 that a leave entitlement should be created for everyone on an award, which was that they would have up to five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave per annum, and that would be enshrined in the award. The commission also decided that they would undertake a process over the subsequent few years to consider taking that decision further, to take the principle from unpaid to paid and also to consider whether or not the initial decision about five days was correct.

When the 2018 decision about unpaid leave was made under the previous government, we made the decision to enshrine that principle into the National Employment Standards, because, if we hadn't done that, the Fair Work Commission's decision would have only applied to people on an award. Whilst people on an award should have that entitlement, it's a logical extension that every worker should have that entitlement, whether or not they're on an award. The National Employment Standards apply to all employees, and we made the decision to extend the Fair Work Commission's creation of that entitlement to apply to everyone. That was universally welcomed by business in particular at the time.

What this bill is now doing is following exactly the same principle that we undertook after the 2018 decision, because, more recently, the Fair Work Commission completed their process that they outlined in the March 2018 decision to look at whether or not they would expand the entitlement to become paid rather than unpaid and also at whether or not the five-day period would be adjusted. Their decision for those on an award was to make it paid and also to increase the entitlement from five days to 10 days. What we're doing now is putting this—as we did three years ago—into the National Employment Standards so that that entitlement that those on an award now have is applied to all employees, by virtue of enshrining it in the National Employment Standards.

I'm very supportive of that principle. In contributing to the motion about paid family and domestic violence leave last sitting week in the House, I made the point of how vital it was that we do everything we can to support people in that horrible, terrible and disgraceful situation of being victims of family and domestic violence. We wouldn't ever want someone to feel, because of their employment circumstance, that they couldn't leave such a situation or have the time they needed to put themselves in a safe place and in a safe position because of fear of losing income or having some kind of repercussion for them through their employment.

I commend the Fair Work Commission for the work they've done in this space both in the 2018 and 2021 decisions. I think this is an excellent outcome in the fight that we all have a bipartisan approach towards, which is to stamp out the scourge that is family and domestic violence wherever we can. I think this principle will go another step towards achieving that. I commend it to the House.

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