Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 2682 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

allowed to be part of that consultation. Building companies pass these costs on to their clients, Mr Speaker. The advice I have is that there is little capacity for the cleaning industry to do so. If we are going to make it harder for industries to operate inside the ACT, we have to consider the long-term effects of that.

Australian Business raises the point that the payment formula appears complex and, indeed, may fund 111/2 weeks' leave and not the 10 weeks intended, but I am sure that Mr Berry will address that when he rises to close the debate. The other thing is that, quite clearly, there has been no assessment of the costs to the Government of establishing the fund and employing the inspectors. Should the fund be funding that? Clearly, the Bill needs further consideration. What we have here is something that I think has good intent. All workers are entitled to receive that to which they are entitled, but what we have not discussed is whether this is the most appropriate way for this matter to go ahead. Instead, we have had something put up that may, in fact, affect employment in the ACT. We may see companies going under because suddenly there is a 2 per cent impost that they have not accounted for.

Some of the contracts are extremely long term. Some of the contracts are for seven to 10 years. If you have a fixed rate for that contract and suddenly you have an added impost that you have not taken into account and it is something that you cannot pass on, the viability of your company is affected and that, of course, affects the employment opportunities that your company presents. I am certain that the Government does not want to see any companies go under. We certainly do not want to see companies operating from across the border.

Mr Speaker, the Government believes that before we commit ourselves to this initiative we need to look at the real effect of it and we need to make sure that there are not other alternatives which would allow workers to access their rights, as they are entitled to. Is the setting up of another long service leave board the appropriate thing to do? What effect would this legislation have on all Canberrans and Canberra's economy as a whole? We need to make sure that workers will be better off and that the Territory will be better off, not make employment opportunities more fragile and the Territory worse off because of legislation passed by this Assembly.

I think that we should have a much longer consultation period on this issue, Mr Speaker. The indications I have had from the industry representatives that I have spoken to are that they are very keen to come to a reasonable outcome on this issue, but they do not believe that they have had time to address it reasonably and they do not believe that they have the facility to accept the added burden of a 2 per cent levy, particularly where they have already established contracts with no clauses by which they can vary their charges. With that, they have grave concerns about their viability within the ACT and whether companies will close or move across to New South Wales.

Mr Speaker, it is important that we in the Assembly make sure that we get it right when we pass legislation, make sure that we do have workers being better off instead of limiting their options and make sure that all-up the Territory is better off and that we are not threatening jobs here. A number of issues have been raised by a number of groups which are willing to work towards ensuring that workers get their rights, whilst not destroying opportunities for Canberrans in the interim.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .