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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (1 September) . . Page.. 2690 ..

MS CARNELL (continuing):

Mr Speaker, if not everybody gets to serve for 10 years, we get to Mr Kaine's questions. A levy of 2 per cent will be contributed to the fund by employers for all of their employees. What would happen to the money for those employees who, like many people in the industry, work for a few years while they are at university or have a second job while they are paying off a mortgage? I am not saying that that is the case for everyone, but it is for a good percentage. What would happen to the 2 per cent that is being paid for those people? Would it be paid back to the employer? This Bill makes no allowance whatsoever for that.

We know that the previous long service leave levy was significantly overcontributed in an industry that is not nearly as casual as this one - the building and construction industry. Certainly, there are some casual employees, but an enormous number of people in that industry work in the industry for all of their lives. That is not the case here. We have no capacity to know what happens to the money under Mr Berry's legislation. Does it end up just being an extra tax on those employers? I have to say, if it is not paid back and it is not called on, that that is exactly what it is - nothing more and nothing less than a tax.

As we know, the majority of the employees in this industry do not get to spend 10 years in the industry, regardless of which employer they work for. That means that by going down this path employers will pay 2 per cent on all of their salary costs, not just 2 per cent on the people who get to work there for 10 years; so it will be a new cost for those employers. I think many of us would have had representations from companies such as City Group - I will use their name; I do not think they will mind - about the huge problem they have with workers compensation premiums in the ACT right now. Workers compensation premiums in the ACT have gone up by 25 to 30 per cent over the last few years. They are significantly higher in the ACT than they are over the border in New South Wales.

Comments have been made by a number of those companies that that extra cost for them is making them uncompetitive with people who operate from outside the ACT. This 2 per cent levy does not exist in Queanbeyan, either. The New South Wales Labor Government, which is into its second term in office, has not introduced this provision; so those companies over the border in Queanbeyan will pay significantly less in workers compensation and will not be paying this 2 per cent.

Mr Berry: What is the relevance?

MS CARNELL: Mr Berry says, "What is the relevance?". Mr Speaker, jobs are the relevance; it is that simple. If a company set up in the ACT has significantly higher costs than a company in Queanbeyan, it does not take a genius, Mr Berry, to work out why that is important. It means that the companies here will either relocate to over the border or lose work in an industry that is contract tender based to competitors over the border.

Mr Berry: No.

MS CARNELL: Sorry, they must lose - - -

Ms Tucker: That is why everybody is going offshore.

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