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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 436 ..

which workers in the private sector are entitled. The list includes an entitlement—and the ACT is quite generous here—in relation to a pro rata benefit on the worker becoming redundant. Page 2 also lists the acts that govern long service leave in Canberra, namely, the Long Service Leave Act 1976, the Long Service (Building and Construction Industry) Act 1981 and the Long Service Leave (Contract Cleaning Industry) Act 1981.

What Mr Berry’s bill would do is extend long service leave entitlements right across the private sector regardless of whether employees stayed in the one job or not. In other words, his bill would give portability to employees in the private sector who are not covered by any of the bills that I have just mentioned.

Naturally and as expected, such a move has evoked some controversy. Before I go into that, Mr Deputy Speaker—and this is covered in my dissenting report—might I just say that our approach to long service leave in Australia is quite distinctive to what applies in the rest of the world. It is distinctive in that it is a legislated right for the entire workforce if you stay in the one employment for a period of time.

Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and Greece, grant long service leave as a reward for continuity of service; and they grant an extended period of annual leave. In some Canadian provinces extended annual leave after set periods of continuous service is prescribed in legislation. In New Zealand there are long service leave provisions in some employment contracts. But Australia certainly leads the world in provision of long service leave.

What then are the problems? I have brought down a dissenting report for a number of reasons. The first reason is that long service leave is a reward to an employee for dedicated and loyal long service to a particular employer, be that employer the state in the case of public servants, or a particular employer like a firm or a business in private enterprise.

There are a couple of exceptions in the ACT. We have acts which enable portability for workers in the building industry and the cleaning industry. Historically, because of the nature of the work, employers in these two industries have a high turnover of employees. I understand that there was some controversy in respect of the cleaning industry legislation, but at least the rationale is there.

One of the main concerns about this bill is that it would give a blanket cover to anyone who changed jobs, regardless of the origins of long service leave and the rationale behind it, which is to reward long, loyal and effective service to a particular firm. I think it is important to note that in the case of the state, the crown—call it what you will—there is only one employer and it has never particularly mattered if public servants moved from department to department. So there is considerable opposition to the legislation on the grounds that it departs from the general principles of long service leave.

Some other very real concerns have been expressed by such groups as the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Some very interesting statistics are set out on page 13 of the report. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as at, I think, August 2003 there were some 20,618 businesses in the ACT, and of those approximately 20,000 were small businesses with fewer than 20 employees. Also, almost half of the small businesses,

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