Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Under this bill, they will be entitled to an 18-week payment of the minimum wage. The bill does not give them an entitlement to 18 weeks paid leave, but I will leave that aside. Given the lack of consultation about this amendment, I fear that there will be large parts of the workplace community hanging off our clumsy attempts here this morning, but I will do my best with my final two questions to help, I hope, to clarify the amendment in terms of its application to any other obligation the employer may have to the employee. This may seem pedantic; however, in workplace parlance it is not. Does ‘obligation an employer has to a worker’ also encompass what might be regarded as a statement of intent—for example, in a policy statement? I ask because it has been argued in the very quick discussion that there has been about this amendment that it is the employer’s right because, to the extent that employers provide paid parental leave, many of them do it by way of a statement of policy which is left outside any sort of legal obligation. So the question is: does the meaning of the word ‘obligation’ in the amendment extend to statements of intent, or is it a legal obligation?