Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take this opportunity as we head into the holiday period to speak about the tourism industry in Tasmania and the hospitality workers that help make that happen. The tourism industry in Tasmania directly and indirectly contributes about $2.5 billion a year to Tasmania's gross state product, which is the highest economic contributor for any state in Australia. It directly supports 17,500 jobs and directly and indirectly contributes the highest percentage of jobs to Tasmania's employment at 15.3 per cent of the total in the state. A total of 1.17 million people visited Tasmania during the year, and this does not include the burgeoning cruise ship industry.

The tourism industry in Tasmania benefits from the highly skilled workers in our hospitality industry. Hospitality can be a very rewarding career, particularly in Tasmania: the opportunity to work on some of the most pristine coastlines in the world at top-class hotels or in some of the country's best live music venues. There are many workers who take great pride in delivering coffees and beers at local pubs.

However, it saddens me that there are those in this community, and indeed in this House, that would see these hospitality workers that deliver some of the finest food in the country—indeed in the world—take a pay cut. Their ludicrous argument is that the costs saved to businesses would then be shared with our workers in our community as jobs.

The McKell Institute produced a study in 2014 that examined the economic impact of penalty rate cuts in the retail sector of a rural area of New South Wales, and it found that retail workers there would lose millions of dollars per year, as cuts of take-home pay. What effect would this have on this rural economy? A loss of disposable income to the lowest paid workers across rural New South Wales of possibly $11 million, and it is precisely these workers that keep our economy going. These are the workers that keep the Tasmanian economy going. While it may be employers who create jobs in rural centres, it is the workers who consume that keep the local economies ticking over.

A research paper released last week by Citi Research found that cutting penalty rates would increase earnings for shareholders by up to eight per cent. One of the alternatives to an improved dividend to the shareholder is a benefit to consumers. Nowhere does it suggest that this reduction in costs of human resources for a business would then be reinvested or spent on other human resources. It does not take an economic genius to know that the market is designed to find the most efficient way of delivering services and products. Contrary to the arguments put forward by those who would like to see the lowest paid workers in Australia paid less, a reduction in costs simply goes to profit.

As we head into the holiday season, Tasmanian hospitality workers and their families have no idea as to whether they are about to receive one of the biggest pay cuts in decades. What do penalty rates mean for our lowest paid workers? Carol, in Launceston, works weekends in hospitality, and also is a full-time foster parent to her nephew, who has a chronic health condition. Any cut to penalty rates would have a huge impact on Carol's family and her capacity to support and provide for her foster child. It is something that she cannot afford, and does not deserve.

There is also Lititia in Hobart, who works in catering. Weekend rates for her mean the difference between fresh or frozen vegetables for her family, and the ability to provide dance lessons for her daughters. Any cut to the penalty rates would be a pay cut that they cannot afford and they do not deserve. Lititia knows that if weekend rates are cut, her employer will not put on more staff because they do not need more staff. Her employer will just take a larger profit.

Then there is Kirsty from Hobart, who has built a career for herself in hospitality. Every weekend she misses out on special events with her family and friends in order to do her job. When we are out relaxing and enjoying ourselves on Friday and Saturday nights, it is people like Kirsty who will be serving us and making our precious weekends more enjoyable. This Christmas Day, Kirsty is likely to be working again while the rest of us are unwrapping presents and gorging on turkey, ham, prawns and, of course, non-CUB beer. Of course she would like to be fairly compensated for that, and yet again any move by the FWC to reduce penalty rates will result in a pay cut that Kirsty cannot afford and does not deserve.

We in Labor understand that penalty rates continue to be a fundamental part of a strong safety net for Australian workers, enabling low-income workers and workers in highly casualised industries to share in our nation's economic prosperity.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few weeks ago Queenslanders woke to the news that the state Labor government is planning to sell assets. I know the people in my electorate very clearly remember exactly what Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said she would never do. In fact, at the 2015 state election, the now Premier launched her campaign in front of massive signs that said 'Stop the asset sell-off'.

I spoke on this topic here in parliament as soon as I heard of the state government's plan to flog off assets owned by the state in Carseldine in my electorate. I called out the Premier for misleading Queenslanders, just as Bill Shorten and those opposite misled Australians with their Medicare campaign—their scare campaign—at the last federal election. I spoke specifically about the plan to sell the Carseldine government precinct, formerly the QUT Carseldine campus. I want to add that I said that there were a number of issues here. It is the fact that the state government said they would never sell assets, and now they are blatantly going ahead and doing it. But they have done so without any consultation in the community. Carseldine residents are fed up, and they have the Save our Carseldine Facebook page up and running, where people in Carseldine can get information on the environment, on traffic and town planning, on flooding and on what this will mean for the suburb.

Growing up in the area, I used to run around down in Cabbage Tree Creek, which borders Carseldine. It is a great green space, full of native plants, reptiles, birds and animals. The Carseldine government precinct on the corner of Dorville Road and Beams Road provides Carseldine residents with valuable green space. There are cycleways, sporting ovals and it is a popular market venue with the Carseldine markets every Saturday morning. The space in Carseldine is home to squirrel gliders and some 103 bird species, including long-billed corellas, red-backed fairy-wrens, owls, honeyeaters and kingfishers that live around Cabbage Tree Creek. There has been no planning in relation to wildlife at all in this rushed campaign. This is a significant urban bushland area in the northern suburbs, and selling off this land would destroy some 60 per cent of the green space.

The other thing is that, because there has been no consultation and no thought, there has been no thought around traffic and town planning. Let's look at the limited information the state government has given locals. This sell-off would make way for 900 new dwellings of four, five and eight storeys high. I am certainly not against development. I certainly know that, as a growing city, Brisbane needs new places for people to live in order to help bring down the cost of housing and to house people. But there is one rule for normal developers and then there is a separate rule for the state government. The people in my electorate of Petrie cannot stand that the state government just says: 'Oh gee, we're short on a buck. We racked up $80 billion in debt. We've offloaded it from government debt onto assets like electricity assets'—that is not really government debt, but it pushes up everyone's electricity bill in Carseldine. There has been no planning. There is one rule for the state Labor government and another rule for everyone else.

Roads in this area—in particular, the level crossing over the railway tracks at Beams Road—need upgrading urgently. The Brisbane City Council, to their credit, and the former Newman state government upgraded the Bracken Ridge overpass and the Geebung overpass. They did not get around to upgrading Beams Road. But this state Labor government has no plan to upgrade it. The sale of the land in Carseldine might net up to $100 million. But it would cost a minimum of $80 million just to build an overpass over this area—and according to the local councillor, Amanda Cooper, it could be higher. I want to thank the local Brisbane City Council councillor, Amanda Cooper, and the state member for Aspley, Tracey Davis. They have been strong advocates in calling the state government to account and making sure they consult with Carseldine locals on this important issue. To the people in Carseldine: thank you to everyone involved. If you want more information, get onto the Save Our Carseldine campaign on Facebook. Thank you.