Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

I table a revised explanatory memorandum relating to the bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

The Bill ensures that all employees in the federal workplace relations system to whom the APEC public holiday applies will receive the same public holiday entitlements under their industrial instrument on that day as they would for any other public holiday.

This is necessary because some industrial instruments do not recognise local public holidays.

This public holiday is necessary to facilitate the holding of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings that will be hosted in Sydney over the week of 2-9 September 2007. The APEC Economic Leaders Meeting is one of the most important annual meetings of world leaders.

In order to allow for the smooth running of the event, the New South Wales Government has declared a one-off APEC public holiday for the Sydney metropolitan area for Friday 7 September 2007. Currently, while most federal system employees to whom the APEC public holiday applies will receive public holiday entitlements, some of these employees may not have an entitlement to this special one-off holiday.

This Bill proposes to ensure that all employees covered by federal industrial instruments receive public holiday entitlements for the APEC public holiday. The public holiday will have effect in relation to workplaces within specified local government areas of metropolitan Sydney, not on the basis of a person’s place of residence within those areas.

It will remove any doubt that employees working in the local government areas in which the APEC public holiday is to be observed will receive the same entitlements for the APEC holiday as for other public holidays under their industrial instrument.

Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour.