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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 5 Hansard (11 May) . . Page.. 1503 ..
MS TUCKER (continuing):
generating job opportunities through a thriving economy. So if we are interested in the ability for people to share work and if we want to see work cultures develop so that this is seen as acceptable and will not be a problem for someone's promotion possibilities, we have to be very concerned about these sorts of initiatives. Mrs Carnell said, "Yes, the people who particularly want to do this are single people." That actually highlights the point that I am raising now. What can actually end up happening is that you will see employers who develop a preference for single people because they will not need to take holidays.
Who will be impacted upon by that sort of culture developing? Of course it will most often be women who have children and who have caring responsibilities and therefore will definitely want their holidays because they have school holiday responsibilities. This does not take into account the fact that there are serious issues of quality of life, obviously, in terms of the human relationships of each family and the social relationships of individuals.
Mr Osborne said, "This is not family friendly." I heard him say that. This is a really important point in this discussion. If we are, as a society, concerned about the issues of overemployment and underemployment and we have an understanding that human relationships, social relationships, family relationships will suffer if this particular culture continues to become stronger, then we have to be concerned about these sorts of initiatives.
In the Legislative Assembly, particularly, the pressure to work extended hours, over extended times, is definitely an issue. Mr Osborne was saying that sometimes we almost have to boot staff out and make sure that they are not working too long; that they do take their leave; and that they actually look after themselves because the pressure is huge. We know that, as members ourselves, we have to manage our time, and we have the choice to do that. Some do it and some do not. Some do it better than others. I am not all that good at it myself, I have to confess.
But I feel the responsibility as an employer to ensure that the people who are working with me, as committed as they are, are not exploited by the situation and do not have their health being negatively impacted upon; that their families do not have to suffer because we happen to choose to work in the Legislative Assembly where there is such incredibly huge pressure.
Mrs Carnell also said that there is no possibility that any employer would ever force someone to take cash. Well, that would clearly be true, but that is really a rather insulting response to what happens, because the reality, as everybody knows, is that what happens in workplaces is that it is not the employer saying, "You shall cash in your leave," it is much more subtle than that, and any kind of research shows that.
Mr Moore: We are not being dictators.
MS TUCKER
: Mr Moore is interjecting, with the same glib line as his colleagues over there use, but he would know that any epidemiological research that has been done into health and workplace shows the subtle pressures from the culture of a particular workplace and that it is not simple to say, "No employer will force someone to take
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