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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 02 Hansard (Tuesday, 2 March 2004) . . Page.. 440 ..

that would be imposed on employers if they were to manage these entitlements themselves.

Why does the issue arise? Well, the issue arises because different workplaces end up with different conditions. Some employers tend to manage their workforces in such a way that their employees never get access to long service leave.

The current legislation is being amended so that pro rata entitlements can be available once an employee has served five years. However, it is within the capability of many employers to manage their workforces in such a way as to ensure that their employees never get an entitlement to long service leave. On the other hand, there are employers who are loyal to their employees and want to create a decent working place. They are quite happy to encourage their employees to stay with them, to a point where they are entitled to long service leave.

The difficulty arises when those two contrasting employers compete against each other. One employer is able to quote, if you like, on any business that it wishes to attract on the basis that it can save 1.67 per cent because it does not provide long service leave to its employees. This puts at a disadvantage the other employer who provides these sorts of conditions to its workers. It does not take long for employers to start to think, “Well, if I’m going to be disadvantaged by my generous and loyal approach to my employees, I will have to rethink the position.” We end up in a race to the bottom, and that is a really serious issue for workers out there.

We know that, with the so-called flexibility that has been created by the Workplace Relations Act, there has been a massive shift to casualisation throughout the Australian workforce. Of course, those workers do not get entitlements to long service because this “flexibility” has allowed employers to manage their workforces in a way to minimise entitlements.

In more recent times we have been faced with headline grabbing corporate collapses which have impacted heavily on workers. But you do not hear so often about the smaller collapses where workers do not get their entitlements because these events are not so massive. But one that struck us and which we have been reminded of on a very regular basis is Woodlawn mines. That company abandoned its workers and, of course, they lost their entitlements. I think that debate is continuing.

What about the Ansett collapse and the impact on workers’ entitlements of poor corporate management? These workers’ entitlements were not protected. What about National Textiles? This was a company which was managed by a relative of the Prime Minister. It seems that you can get help if you happen to be a relative of the Prime Minister because in the National Textiles case the taxpayer footed the bill. Is it right for the taxpayer to be footing the bill of these major corporations which collapse and are unable to protect workers’ entitlements? I say it is not. I say that these working condition ought to be protected.

Employees should feel safe in the knowledge that their entitlements will be available when they are due to them. That has been the case in the construction industry long service leave scheme. It has been the case in the cleaning industry scheme that was established here in the Australian Capital Territory. In fact, a representative of the

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