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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 8 Hansard (26 June) . . Page.. 2132 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

The Long Service Leave (Building and Construction Industry) Act 1981, to some extent at least, remedies this. It recognises the transient nature of their employment and provides a fund into which credit for workers can be paid. That fund is administered by a board. In this way, workers can, at each workplace, have credits registered so that although they may have technically had many different jobs over the years - and in other industries that would have resulted in workers not being entitled to workers compensation because of their having worked for many different employers - it is recognised by this Act that they are employed in one industry and can gain long service leave in the way that workers in other industries do.

This Bill that I am introducing today seeks to improve that long service leave provision. Currently, the Act provides for around three months' leave after 15 years service. This Bill seeks to provide for three months' leave after 10 years of service, which is the standard that applies, incidentally, for public sector workers in the ACT. But that should not be used as a comparison because the conditions which apply for workers in the construction industry are far different from those that apply in the public sector in the ACT and elsewhere. Workers in the construction industry are still caught up in the troughs and peaks of construction, which we are all aware of, and are also caught up in changes in industry from one employer to another and all the difficulties that go with it. The additional leave, in Labor's view, is a reasonable, new standard to apply to construction workers in light of the type of work that they carry out.

Before I presented this Bill, I checked on the assets of the Construction Industry Long Service Leave Board to establish whether the provisions of this Bill could be accommodated. I am happy to report that the fund currently has assets of $34m, with a current long service leave liability of $14.6m and a retained surplus of $19.2m. The retained surplus has grown in the past year from $18.8m to $19.2m. Clearly, the fund is capable of dealing with the issue which is before it. It is not about to be an impost on employers; the money is there and it can be applied for this condition. Notwithstanding that, this piece of legislation recognises the special conditions which apply to construction workers, conditions which do not apply in many other industries. In my view, those special conditions entitle those workers to that extra increase in the standard of leave provision because of the particular nature of the work that they carry out. I commend this Bill to the Assembly and would urge members to support it in due course.

Debate (on motion by Mr De Domenico) adjourned.

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