Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

  There are thousands in my electorate who are going to be hurt by the scrapping of Sunday penalty rates.    One member of my electorate told me that the government was sending out the message: 'Its tax cuts for big business and pay cuts for barista's'. While some in small businesses in Melbourne Ports will support these cuts for casual workers from 200 per cent on a Sunday to 150 per cent and the cuts for full-time and part-time workers in the fast-food industry from 175 per cent to 150 per cent, many will not because of the effect on the disposable income of the large student population working casual jobs, who are going to have their disposable income reduced.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, of the top five industries in terms of employment in my electorate, the hospitality and retail industries come in at fourth and fifth, with a combined total of 17 per cent of those employed in the electorate of Melbourne Ports coming from these industries. With the Australian Electoral Commission showing that there are 100,000 voters in my electorate, this means that 15,000 people in my electorate are directly affected by the Fair Work Commission decision—a decision which they would regard as anything but fair. According to the 2011 census, Melbourne Ports is amongst the top 10 most affected electorates to be impacted by this decision to cut Sunday pay rates. Given the large numbers of my constituents impacted by this decision, it is not surprising that many young people are disappointed that, aside from Labor, no other major party made a submission to the Fair Work Commission arguing that penalty rates be left as they were.

Over the weekend, people in my electorate I spoke to raised real concerns about other industries also losing their Sunday penalty rates—nurses and transport workers, all with legitimate concerns that they could be next. That includes retail and food workers currently protected on EBAs in supermarket chains who may be protected at the moment—but who knows for how long that will be the case. There is talk in the media of some of these large chains using the Fair Work decision to alter their bids in the next round of bargaining on these EBAs. Neither the Fair Work Commission nor the government can explain why on Sunday a retail or hospitality worker is somehow less valuable than anyone else from any other industry. The McKell Institute released a report that points out that these penalty rate changes will also exacerbate the gender pay gap, with 55 per cent of those affected being female. The McKell Institute also reports that the changes will impact future EBA negotiations because they signal 'an economy-wide devaluation of Sunday penalty rates' and may serve to undermine future collective bargaining. This is widely expected to be the case in many of the mass retail chains.

The Leader of the Opposition—the member for Maribyrnong and my friend—said:

Malcolm Turnbull and his ministers campaigned for cuts to penalty rates …

The Prime Minister can't even summon up a bit of sympathy for these people—

who have had their Sunday rates of pay cut—

As far as he's concerned, they are just numbers on a spreadsheet.

These people have bills to pay and families to support—and every single one has less money in their pocket as a result of this dreadful decision.

The opposition and the Leader of the Opposition will continue to campaign for the 700,000 Australians who are dreadfully affected by these decisions.

I say this in the context of the extraordinary few weeks of parliament that we have seen, with the Prime Minister attacking the Leader of the Opposition on his record as a moderate union leader. I have found some of the expressions by people on that side, about the Leader of the Opposition 'sticking his feet under the tables of billionaires', to be the most incredible cant and hypocrisy, as if the people on that side, and the Prime Minister in particular, have something against all of the billionaires that the Prime Minister mentioned and do not mix with them—as any leader of this country naturally does when they are trying to see that business in Australia operates in accordance with the laws of Australia, employment is engendered and all of these kinds of things. We have the hypocrisy of those opposite attacking the Leader of the Opposition over knowing people in business, as if the Prime Minister does not know any rich people, while at the same time coming in here and flaying us for opposing these cuts to the Sunday penalty rates of ordinary people. We are going to continue on and we are not going to be phased by the rhetoric over there.