Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

at Spotlight. Yes, that was the princely sum Spotlight employees got—we remember that—two cents in return for a whole range of penalty rates and other entitlements. But the reality is that under the government’s workplace laws you can be told to give up all of these entitlements without any requirement for the employer to give you a single cent extra. So the wonderful impact of these workplace laws that Senator Abetz so proudly and triumphantly espouses is that you and your family can be told: ‘You give up your penalty rates, you give up your overtime rates, you give up your shift loadings, you give up your leave loadings, you give up your rostered days off and you know what? I, the employer, do not have to give you a cent extra.’

This is what the government are putting on the Australian people. This is the choice they are giving people. The choice is take it or leave it and get nothing in return. It is choice all on one side and you can spruik it as much as you like, but out there people understand what is happening. They understand what is happening to their kids and they understand what is happening in their own workplaces because they know that when it comes down to it people are not going to sit down with them, as Senator Abetz says the Commonwealth Bank will, and they will not be able to negotiate an additional payment. (Time expired)