Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor government’s Fair Work Bill will put in place a comprehensive safety net of employment conditions which will be made up of the 10 National Employment Standards as well as industry- and occupation-specific modern awards. This is to ensure that workers across this country have a comprehensive safety net—something that was removed by those opposite in their extreme and ideologically driven agenda to reduce the wages and conditions of Australian workers. Those opposite keep saying, ‘Let’s have evidence based policy.’ Well, the cold, hard evidence is that your policy led to many women on AWAs earning less and certainly earning less than men on AWAs. Under our legislation, crucial employment benefits will now be protected, including rest breaks, redundancy, overtime, and weekend and shift work—  (Time Expired)