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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 2684 ..

MR CORBELL (continuing):

made some attempt to quantify what the costs may be. You must have some rough figure. Do you, Minister?. Clearly, they have not. Clearly, they have not seriously attempted to make that assessment, Mr Speaker.

Equally, the Minister raised concern about what is the right level of contribution. He argued that perhaps a level similar to that for the building industry of 21/2 per cent was not appropriate. Again, we had no answers, no suggestions, no alternatives proposed by the Minister. He was simply raising another question in the hope that it would confuse the issue and delay it indefinitely.

Perhaps the most concerning point and perhaps the most worrying point for any member of this place was the argument from the Minister which says that employers have fixed-term contracts which cannot be changed; therefore, they could not recoup their costs if they were required to contribute to this scheme. I do not know where the Minister gets that argument from because you would think that every employer who was doing the right thing by their employees would be already taking the cost of long service leave into account. In fact, they are required to take that cost into account. They are required to do so under the Long Service Leave Act. Is the Minister seriously saying that there are employers out there who are not taking into account long service leave?

Ms Tucker: That is what he is saying.

MR CORBELL: If that is what he is saying, then that is a very strong argument for this Bill. That is precisely why we are proposing this Bill, and the Minister knows it. The Minister knows it, from the smirk on his face. If there are employers out there who are not already putting aside the requirements to pay their employees long service leave, that is exactly the reason why we should have this Bill. If they are already taking into account long service leave, there is no reason not to pass this Bill because they are already meeting that cost, there is no additional cost. Which is it, Minister? Which argument are you going to be presenting? Either way, you lose. Either way, there is a strong argument for saying that this Bill should be put into place.

Mr Speaker, what we have seen from the Government today is a disappointing, reactionary and completely patronising response to this piece of legislation. This piece of legislation has been on this table for a significant period and all we get from the combined resources of the Government is a series of half-baked, ill-thought through questions with no answers. Is that the sort of response we should expect from the Government of this Territory? Is that the sort of serious, considered response that you would expect from a government that is seriously concerned about protecting the rights of employees when it comes to long service leave? No, it is not. It is a completely inadequate response.

People who work in the cleaning industry, as with people who work in the building industry, work in positions which are among the lowest paid and least glamorous of any job around. They are often dangerous jobs as well. If there are employees out there who are not receiving their fair entitlements, we should be passing this Bill today because they deserve those entitlements. They are not like us. We can sit back in comfort and

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