Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a member of the old 2nd/4th Battalion, I commend the member for Makin for his work and his words in the parliament today.

I am standing here today on behalf of the 8,400 15- to 19-year-olds on the Sunshine Coast who are unemployed. These are people who are, quite frankly, almost locked out of the workforce in a way that they do not wish to be.

The Sunshine Coast has a bright future economically. A lot of good things are happening. But, unfortunately, there are too many young people whose dreams and aspirations are not being met because they are not getting a start in life. I am sure that if you went around the 150 MPs in this place and the senators in the other place you would find so many of them started in the workplace in part-time work, often in kitchens or pumping petrol, as you used to once do—that was my first paid job; I actually worked in a shop for six years for my family business and I got paid with love from my mum!

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Mal Brough (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Very valuable. And happy birthday to dad today, who is 80-something. I come back to this really important issue for the coast. We have a young population and we lose too many of them, who feel they have to go away for employment opportunities.

This week I received a letter from an employer who wants to employ more people but simply cannot. He owns one cafe; he had two. He had to close one of them and put off nine staff. I want to quote a few of the sentences that he wrote to me: 'The end result is that it costs around $50 per hour to employ a staff member on a public holiday, which many hospitality businesses just cannot afford. The rate now paid on Sundays is not a great deal less, which sees many hospitality businesses either begin to reduce opening hours—thus, this happens on both Saturdays and Sundays—or close altogether.' He concludes: 'When a business closes on a public holiday or a Sunday, due to the costs of penalty rates, no-one gains. The business owner gets no income but still needs to meet ongoing expenses, such as rent and power. The employees get no income and the government doesn't gain from taxes such as GST and PAYG that would have been raised for that day. Economically, no-one gains from this situation.'

To put a bit of meat on the bones, what does this actually mean in dollar terms? For a pharmacy worker, the current 19-year old, level 1 rate is $17.98 an hour, or $22.48 an hour for a casual. But come a public holiday, when the Sunshine Coast needs to be open to provide the ambience and the options that the public who go there for the beauty of its beaches and its hinterland want to experience, the rate is $49.45 an hour for that same 19-year-old, level 1 employee. It is the same in the hospitality industry. The wages go from $17.49, up to $48.10 an hour. No-one begrudges people getting those wages but if the business is not open then no-one gains, as the employer says.

I went on to do a little more research rather than just listening to anecdotal accounts. Red Rooster in its submission to Fair Work Australia included a submission that had been put together by Deloittes. It found the following from its members: decrease in hours of operation during periods when penalty rates apply—49 per cent were franchisees; increase in operators' own working hours, 75 per cent were franchisees; decrease in the number of employees, 65 per cent were franchisees; and decrease in the hours offered to employees, 72 per cent.

Similarly, in the pharmacy industry where they did a similar survey: 54 per cent of pharmacists decreased their overall hours offered to employees; 62 per cent reported a decrease in the use of casual employees; 39 per cent reported the proprietor was working more hours; and 34 per cent reduced or ceased trading on public holidays. No-one wins when it is out of kilter. I am not against award wages being increased for acknowledgement of working after hours—penalty rates—but when they get out of kilter and people are locked out of the labour market we are denying people the start in life that they need. One fact we know is that any job is better than no job and that any job leads to a better job. And for the 6,500 young people on the Sunshine Coast who are locked out, that task has been made more challenging.

I put out my own survey in April last year and found that a large percentage of businesses, from butchers to bakers, from gift shop owners to restaurants, closed over Easter and reduced their hours. I was supported by the federal Labor candidate Bill Gissane, who said this:

What I'm looking for is successful negotiation so businesses can prosper and the people who are employed in our service-based industries, who are among our lowest paid, are not disadvantaged …

We need to do more for the youth of the Sunshine Coast and Australia by addressing this issue. (Time expired)