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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 2681 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

working full time, but there are no records available to show what proportion of the workers work long enough in the industry to accrue long service leave. We would simply be locking up industry funds for apparently no good reason.

I am concerned at the effect that this Bill would have on the location of employment in this region. That is another effect that has not been considered by this Bill. This Bill could well end up being very good news for Queanbeyan and New South Wales if businesses relocated across the border in an attempt to avoid this new impost.

The other thing is that, quite clearly, much of the industry has fixed term contracts and made no allowance for an additional 2 per cent levy. Given the margins that operate in this industry and the very tight and competitive market that there is out there at the moment, an extra 2 per cent may well be the factor that drives businesses across the ACT border into New South Wales - they will simply leave the ACT; they will take jobs out of the ACT because of this Bill, affecting employment in the ACT - or drives businesses out of the industry altogether, thereby losing employment. There are very important issues here that have to be discussed.

Mr Speaker, correspondence that I have had from many groups would indicate that they do not believe that there has been enough consultation. Mr Berry may have had meetings yesterday with some of the industry groups, but in a letter to me dated yesterday Australian Business is saying that there has still been little or no consultation on the Bill in the form that it was tabled in the Assembly. They are happy to address these issues and they are happy to be consulted on them, but they feel that at this stage there has not been anywhere near the sort of consultation that needs to take place before such legislation comes into being.

They reiterate the fact that there is a serious risk that the Bill could cost jobs in the Territory. It comes as an unexpected financial burden to many people that are already in long-term contracts. Some of these contracts, I am told, are set for seven or 10 years and have not taken into account another 2 per cent cost that cannot be passed on to the people who have let the contracts. Clearly, with each new job you start in the building industry you can pass that on to the end buyer and they get to pay for it as well; it is a cost included. But for many of these firms which employ large numbers of people and operate at very tight margins, a 2 per cent added impost of this kind may well make their contracts unviable or force them over the border so that we actually lose that employment; they will take their business into New South Wales and operate in New South Wales.

Mr Speaker, the advice I am given by Australian Business is that few cleaning employees remain employed in the industry for more than five years. That is their assessment of the situation. It would seem, therefore, that what you are doing is putting money into a fund that many workers will never be able to access as they will never come into a period where they can gain from these benefits. What happens to the funds that have been set aside for an employee if that employee leaves the industry with no entitlement to long service leave? Are these funds returned to the employer? Do the funds remain in the fund itself? These are things that have to be considered. The industry has grave concern about these things because it feels that it has not been

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