Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move Greens amendment (14) on sheet 5746:

(14)  Clause 123, page 123 (line 31), after “casual employee”, insert “, except a long-term casual employee”.

This relates to redundancy for long-term casual employees. We believe that redundancy pay should be extended to long-term casual employees. The very notion of long-term casuals is a nonsense. Casuals are, by definition, supposed to be temporary workers. Given that in Australia we have developed this concept, and given that it involves having consistent work for at least one year, with the expectation of further work, we strongly believe long-term casuals should have the right to redundancy pay. Professor Peetz in his submission to the inquiry provided evidence to demonstrate that long-term casuals are more disadvantaged than permanent employees when made redundant.

We also take this opportunity to note our disappointment that the bill does not include in the definition of ‘genuine redundancy’ all the usual matters the Industrial Relations Commission has considered in the past. For example, the definition does not include a consideration of the fairness of selecting the employee made redundant nor a consideration of whether the employee has received appropriate compensation for the redundancy. These long-term considerations by the commission are ignored in this bill. We believe that our previous amendments and amendment (14) put more fairness back into the industrial relations system in this country. We think the notion of long-term casuals is, as I said, a nonsense, but they are in fact a reality in Australia and therefore we should be protecting their rights and conditions and we believe they should have a right to redundancy pay.