Justine Keay (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I stand today to support the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill. The bill preserves the independence of the Fair Work Commission but appropriately guides the exercise of its discretion to ensure wages are not cut. Last week the McKell Institute released a report into the impacts of cutting workers' take-home pay on regional and rural Australia by reducing Sunday penalty rates. The McKell Institute confirms what Labor has long been arguing—that cutting the wages of workers in regional communities will rip money out of these economies and workers will lose up to a staggering $667 million each year, and $289 million each year will be lost to those regions entirely.

The latest data suggests 7,585 workers in my regional electorate of Braddon are set to lose $9.9 million each year when penalty rates are cut—a devastating hit to local workers and the local economy. My region is set to lose at least $3.2 million as businesses that are not locally owned take money out of the local economy. This means any savings that businesses claim they will make from cuts in penalty rates will not feed back into the local economy as they shift their savings from labour costs elsewhere. There are 2,009 workers in the retail industry in my electorate who stand to lose almost $6.6 million each year in disposable income.

The McKell Institute's report's findings:

… reinforce the notion that penalty rate pay is central to the livelihoods of significant portions of the Australian workforce, and is vitally important to local economies around the country.

I note some of the other electorates that have been mentioned in this report. It only takes one Liberal or National Party MP to cross the floor and vote with Labor to ensure that their local economies are not hit. The McKell Institute report mentions a number of these Nationals and Liberal MPs' electorates. The electorate of Dawson—and the member for Dawson was just in this chamber—is set to be hit, with $18.7 million to be taken out of that economy. The member for Fairfax is sitting opposite here at the moment, and his electorate will lose $16.8 million from its economy. The electorate of Leichhardt, extraordinarily, will lose $21 million out of its economy. If you are standing up for local businesses, if you are standing up for the local economies in your electorates, then you will vote for this bill.

With the increase in casualisation and insecure work, the regions will feel the impact of reduced disposable income more than elsewhere. Cuts to penalty rates will hurt local workers, with some employees losing close to $77 a week. And if you are struggling to make ends meet, that will be a huge hit to your weekly budget.

I say to those members on the other side: just go and speak to these workers. Have a conversation. Ask them what it means to them to have their penalty rates cut—what it means to them to have less money to take home each week—and I am sure you will be more inclined to vote with Labor on this bill.

In my role as the secretary of Labor's Australian jobs task force, I have heard many of these stories. For us, it may not be a lot of money—we are MPs on MPs' salaries. But, when you are talking to those people on low and middle incomes, you can hear that a small reduction for us is a huge hit for them. I met a young girl who was in unstable accommodation. She worked in retail. She worked a few hours on a Sunday. The amount of money that she will lose from this change to her take-home pay may mean a couple of coffees for us each week at Aussies—seriously, for us, it may not seem a lot of money—but, for her, every dollar counts. She is saving to fund a bond and up-front rent and for other items, so that she can go and live in accommodation where she feels stable. So those hits are extraordinary.

Last week, I was very pleased to host the member for Sydney at an event at the Beach Hotel in Burnie. The proprietor has said that he will not pass on the cuts to penalty rates to his employees because he understands the importance of that disposable income—not just for his business, and not just for those people who come in there and buy a beer at the end of the week because they can afford to, but for his employees. Because he values his employees, he knows the difference that will make to them, and he wants to be an employer of choice. I commend any other business in my electorate to take heed of that and to ensure that they protect their workers as well.

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All roads lead to the Leader of the Opposition's ambition—that is all this is about. At the end of the day, the Leader of the Opposition is under an enormous amount of strain. He knows that the member for Grayndler is going after him and he is going after him hard. And so he should, because, at the end of the day, he has failed to represent the very people he has spent his entire career purporting to represent—and that is the workers. The motion that he has put forward, the amendment he is suggesting, is to place severe restrictions on those who work under modern awards, but he wants to free up life for anybody who negotiates with a union for an enterprise agreement.

He does not want a level playing field. And that is the problem with the Leader of the Opposition—he does not want a level playing field with the member for Grayndler; he certainly does not want a level playing field out in the marketplace when it comes to the union movement, because he knows that the Australian people, the Australian workers, no longer trust the union movement. He knows that the unions will do in the workers, time and time again.

So what do you do? Well, what the Leader of the Opposition is doing is to seek to restrict what can be done under the modern award. He seeks to restrict what the Fair Work Commission can do. Why would this be? It only serves to increase the negotiating power of the union movement. That is it, period.

There is a part of me that would appreciate that, if indeed the union movement protected workers. But the union movement have proven time and again that they fail to protect the workers. Let me have a look at the EBA for those poor people who are working at KFC, who get zero penalty rates on the weekend under their union agreement. That union agreement, under clause 40.2, says that the employer undertakes to positively promote union membership by recommending that all employees join the union. All employees, including new employees at the point of recruitment, shall be given an application form to join the union together with a statement of the employer's policy.

Is it any wonder that the Labor Party will do whatever it takes to ensure that the union movement has a competitive advantage? It is very simple: the more people they can get into their union movement, the more money will flow to the Labor Party. This is a cash grab. This is an ambition of the Leader of the Opposition to ensure that one, he keeps his job; two, the Labor Party keeps getting cashed up. That is what this is about. Do not believe for a moment any of this nonsense that this motion is actually to help the workers. Not only does it harm workers and leave them vulnerable to manipulation by the union movement; it penalises small business—small businesses that not only are the lifeblood of this economy, but are the very ones who are creating jobs, particularly in regional and rural Australia; small businesses that are not unionised like big corporations. The unions do not have the same arrangement with small businesses, so what would you want to do? You would think you would want to ensure a level playing field. But no, not the Leader of the Opposition—the Leader of the Opposition wants to ensure that there is no level playing field. He wants to ensure that small businesses suffer, that they are penalised for not engaging unionised labour. That is all this is: seeking to ensure that there is a cost differential between small and large businesses.

If the Labor Party cared for the worker; if the Labor Party cared for regional and rural areas, in particular; if the Labor Party cared for small business, they would be allowing the Fair Work Commission to do their job with independence. They would not be trying to put the big guidance hand on them to take away their discretion, to apply something retrospectively which takes away their very independence. They would not be punishing small business and the worker. The Labor Party should go back to its roots and start representing what they purport to represent.

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017. I was sent here to represent the interests of the people of Burt and this country. The people of Burt are facing hard times—the sluggish economy, especially in Western Australia, low wages growth and many complex issues including high crime and intergenerational unemployment. Many people in my electorate are low-paid workers, and they rely on the rates to get by—to put food on the table and to keep a roof over their head. So the last thing they need is a cut to their wages. That is what the Fair Work Commission's decision to cut penalty rates will deliver from July this year: a 20 per cent reduction in Sunday wages. The Turnbull government's agreement with the Fair Work Commission decision to cut penalty rates for workers in Burt and across Australia is a travesty. The government's decision not to support Labor's legislation to protect penalty rates is a kick in the teeth to the low-paid workers of Burt, Western Australia and across Australia. It is also a kick in the teeth to the WA economy. We need people to have money in their pockets, not just so they can pay for the essentials of life and support their families, but so they can spend money in our shops and businesses and grow more jobs in Western Australia.

The Turnbull government's refusal to protect penalty rates shows them for who they really are: out of touch, antiworker, anti-WA and un-Australian. Under the Fair Work Act, the Fair Work Commission must ensure that modern awards, together with the National Employment Standards, provide a fair and relevant safety net of terms and conditions. This must be taken into account when varying modern awards. However, this decision reduces Sunday penalty rates for retail award workers from 200 per cent to 150 per cent. It reduces public holiday penalty rates for employees in the hospitality, restaurants, fast-food, retail and pharmacy awards. It varies late-night penalties and also varies the fast-food award late-night loadings.

The Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017—from Labor—ensures that modern awards cannot be varied to reduce penalty rates or the hours for which penalty rates apply if the variation is likely to result in a reduction in the take-home pay of an employee. This amendment ensures that modern awards are a safety net for the take-home pay of employees currently under an award or of prospective employees under an award. For the avoidance of doubt, it amends definitions to take-home pay to make it clear that all employees under modern awards are to receive the full benefit in their take-home pay of any increases to minimum wages.

But why are we here? Part of this is the eternal lie that the need to be open on Sundays somehow makes us a more attractive international nation. But those who have ever gone on a walkabout on a Sunday through the streets of Barcelona, New York or London—international cities all, and none seemingly failing in attracting international tourism—have seen that all have many shops and businesses happily closed on a Sunday. The question really needs to be asked: why is it that we are seeing a continuous attack on staff costs, which is never matched by attacks on inflated rents and other business costs that also act to stop businesses from opening a Sunday?

The effect of this decision from Fair Work is supposedly to increase employment—something most critical in Western Australia, where unemployment is much higher than the national average. It is also supposed to help address underemployment. However, most places open on a Sunday are already operating at an efficient capacity; they are unlikely to be putting on more staff or giving staff more hours. Even so, this dastardly opinion about having to work longer means that the option is given to workers that if they want to try and keep their take-home pay they are going to have to work more hours just to match what they were already on—but, seemingly, this will be actually unavailable. In addition, while there may be some establishments that are able—with these changes—to now open on Sunday when they previously did not, for most that is not going to be the case at all. The RBA has been saying for a long time that we need wages growth and that economic growth is being held back by a lack of wages growth. We finally have inflation back into the target range, at 2.1 per cent, but wages growth is only 1.9 per cent. Workers are going backwards at the moment, and the government, by opposing this bill and making sure that we entrench the cuts to penalty rates, is making all of this worse. This is worse for the economy and is not going to provide any growth at all.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to commend the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017 to the House. This bill will protect the take-home pay for the 13,000 workers in my electorate who are facing a take-home pay cut if this bill does not get support in this chamber. In the electorate of Lalor there are 8,866 retail workers and 4,660 food and accommodation workers. One in seven workers in my electorate will be impacted if this piece of legislation is not passed to protect the take-home pay of workers and to protect penalty rates. My community is one of the hardest hit electorates. Modelling shows that, out of all 150 electorates, we will be the ninth hardest hit.

This is an electorate which cannot afford this hit on its local economy. This is an electorate where I have stood for the past four years with my Labor colleagues to defend against the zombie cuts that would have damaged our local economy. And here we are again, fighting to protect our local economy. Those on the opposite side of this House claim to be standing up for small business, but I know that many small businesses will be impacted detrimentally if these cuts come through on 1 July.

This is just a small piece of my electorate and in my community of the 1.7 million Australians working in the retail, food and hospitality industries, and the up to 700,000 who will be directly impacted by the cut to penalty rates. The decision impacts on workers in pubs and hotels; in fast food and take away stores; in retail stores and businesses; and in pharmacies and chemists. It impacts on workers earning less than $40,000 a year. We are back in that place where this government's attacks on vulnerable Australians continue.

This bill is an opportunity for those opposite to think about the people who live in my community and who face a $77 a week pay cut; to think about the people they rent from; to think about the people who run the small businesses where they shop; to think about the impacts that this will have on our local economy and on individuals and families within Lalor. And this is just the start. If the Fair Work Commission is allowed to have a unilateral cut to people's pay rates it will not stop there. There are already reviews being called for into other industries. So the impacts from here could grow.

It is imperative that this bill be passed in this parliament. It is imperative that we act to protect the vulnerable workers around this country who face a real wage cut. I cannot fathom that I am standing in this place in 2017, confronted with the notion that there can be a direct pay cut delivered by this parliament. It is an absolute disgrace—an absolute disgrace! The impact in my electorate is on young people, on women and on low-income families—families for whom two incomes might add up to $60,000 a year, and they are going to take a cut. In some families, both wage earners will take a cut. It is an absolute disgrace. I implore those opposite to think about what this means for workers in this country, to think about what it means for families and to think about how they would feel if they were facing a very real cut to their wages.

We have heard a lot about this; we can stand here and pick out individuals and talk about the impact on their families. But, for me, one of the strongest memories is sitting in this chamber when Margarita was upstairs here at a question time. I want to make it really clear that on this side of the chamber we stand with Margarita and workers around this country who are facing this very real cut. I stand with Margarita and those on this side of the House stand with Margarita, and we stand with everybody else who she represents. Unlike those opposite, we will not attack Margarita because she is a member of a union, because we understand that she is a member of a union to try to save herself $77 a week. Anyone in this country who has not seen the writing on the wall and moved to join a union really needs to start listening and to start reading Hansard, to know what this government is up to and how much it wants to attack workers in this country.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a great pleasure to rise to support the Leader of the Opposition's bill, the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Take Home Pay) Bill 2017, in this House. We just heard from the member for Lalor; it is always hard to follow her, because she does a great job in this parliament, both as a whip and as a speaker.

The reason she got to speak was that the government have put up such a forthright defence in their backing of the Fair Work Commission's cut on penalty rates. They put up one speaker: the member for Fairfax, who swept in here with his delusions about the way the industrial relations system works, and then he swept back out again. Then we had the member for Hughes up here. He was going to give us his normal rate and rave, but even he did not have his heart in it today; he sort of wandered out of the chamber. And then I thought that that member for Barker was going to make a contribution, but he walked up to talk to my honourable colleague at the dispatch box to find out if he would speak at his AGM!

That is the government's defence for their backing of probably the first cut to penalty rates in living memory; it is probably the first since the Great Depression. This is from a government whose opening lines in the budget was a sort of apology for the fact that Australian workers have not had a pay rise in a long time. The apology about wages growth got spat out of the Treasurer's mouth at about the fourth or fifth paragraph. What do we find from the ABC News article on 17 May—Michael Janda was the reporter:

Wage growth remained at record lows …

The ABS figure is 1.9 per cent. The article goes on to state:

… the lowest on Bureau of Statistics figures that go back to the late 1990s, and probably the slowest rate of pay rises since the last recession.

So what we have here is a government that, on the one hand, is bemoaning the fact that Australians have not had a pay rise, acknowledging that it is a problem in the macro economy and telling everybody, 'Oh, this is a terrible thing,' and apologising for it in their budget, but, on the other hand, backing—not rolling into this House and defending—a decision to cut $77 a week from 700,000 workers. My colleagues have pointed out the extraordinary effect this will have on local economies, but let me just tell you how it will affect South Australia. The McKell report into penalty rates and how it would affect local economies said on page 18 of the report:

In South Australia the study estimates that:

… A partial abolition of penalty rates in the retail and hospitality sectors would result in:

Workers in Rural South Australia losing between $34.7 million p.a. and $66.2 million p.a. …

This is money that comes out of local communities. This is money that comes out of local cafes. This is money that comes out of local economies, which are already suffering from a low demand situation. It is a strange situation where at least one of the members opposite wants to come in here and defend the government's backing of the Fair Work Commission but most of them are hiding under their desks because they dare not come into this chamber and say that cutting penalty is a good idea. Workers in rural South Australia and rural communities all over the country and workers in city cafes all know it is a terrible idea for our economy.

You just think to yourself: what is going on in this government that it would oppose a bill that sensibly restricts the Fair Work Commission from hacking into the penalty rates of hospitality and retail workers and the further flow-on effects that would have? We all know that employers, having taken one small bite of the workers' apple, are not going stop there. Everybody who has ever bargained on behalf of workers knows that if you give up $77 to 700,000 workers it will not be enough; they will come after the rest in the very next bite of the apple. Everybody who has worked in industrial relations knows that.

The government want to talk about the Labor Party. They want to talk about the union movement. They want to talk a lot. But the time is to act. And they can act by backing Bill's bill, which sensibly protects take-home pay, it sensibly restricts the Fair Work Commission from hacking into workers' wages and it protects the overall economy when we do that. We protect the overall economy and every business, small or large, within it.

Debate adjourned.