Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It could be anywhere in Australia: a young, vulnerable apprentice hairdresser nervously signs her first full-time apprenticeship contract with a hair salon. Yet after six months her boss turns to her and says: ‘You know that employment contract you signed? Well, it actually stipulates that you only work 15 hours a week, not full-time. Thanks for coming in and working for 25 hours a week, but we don’t have to pay you for those extra 10 hours. You’ve worked those in error. That’s not what’s written on the contract. Please pay me back thousands of dollars.’

This House, the media and in fact all of Australia would be appalled at a story like that. We would go into meltdown. But in fact that is what is happening on a regular basis to employers in this country, who can find themselves paying for hours of work that have not been done simply because there is an error in a contract. It does not matter what is in the letter of employment in some cases, even if it stipulates clearly that a minimum of 15 hours a week will be worked.

I would ask that Fair Work Australia take a fairer approach and appreciate that if in essence there has been an error in a contract by a third-party then employers should not be compelled to pay back thousands and thousands of dollars for hours that simply have not been worked by an employee. We should be doing the right thing. In cases where there has been reliance on a third party to complete the contract correctly there should not be a penalty on an employer. It should not drive people away from employing young workers in the future. We need a more balanced approach with the handling of these disputes.