Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today is International Cleaners Day. It is a day that we usually mark. We acknowledge, respect and celebrate the hard work of our cleaners. They are quite often a hidden workforce. They are still here when most of us go home. Yet today we are not celebrating. Today many of us stood on the lawns and welcomed and congratulated the cleaners here at Parliament House who have stopped work. They have stopped work for 24 hours. So I encourage all the people here in the chamber today to make sure that they clean their own toilet tonight before they leave, because the cleaners will not be here to do it. It is not easy for cleaners to stop work. They take pride in their work and they know it is going to hit their take-home pay. But the reason these cleaners have stopped work is that this government is not listening to them. Over 12 months ago the Prime Minister stood up in this place and said that no cleaner would be worse off as a result of the government scrapping the Clean Start guidelines. Well, he was wrong. We have already heard from cleaners who work at the Department of Foreign Affairs that because this government scrapped the Clean Start guidelines they have lost over $6,000 a year. That is money they have taken from some of our hardest working Australians, people who are on a low income. This government needs to stick to its word. It needs to restore the Clean Start guidelines and stand up for its cleaners. Otherwise, they will be cleaning their toilets more often than they would like.