Page 4540 - Week 12 - Thursday, 15 October 2009
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The Holidays (Family and Community Day) Amendment Bill 2009 gives effect to the government’s commitment and responds to the outcomes of the consultation by providing that, from 2010, the first Monday in the school holidays between term 3 and term 4 each year will be Family and Community Day. However, where that first Monday of the school holidays falls on the currently designated Labour Day public holiday, such as will occur in 2011 and 2012, the Family and Community Day will be moved to the second Monday of the term break.
It is also now evident that the new national employment standards under the federal Labor government’s Fair Work Act 2009 do not contain public holiday provisions that will include the opportunity for our Holidays Act to revive a union picnic day entitlement to the level and type that existed pre Work Choices. I observe, Mr Speaker, that there must be something in the Liberal Party water supply that likes to deny people perks and lurks and things that they have earned over a century of fighting that particular avaricious bunch that we have opposite us.
Opposition members interjecting—
MR HARGREAVES: It is, indeed, a day for fishing, Mr Speaker. Shall I rise to their bait? Possibly not, but I, Mr Speaker, am the fisherman and they are the carp.
The Holidays Act also provides a union picnic day holiday for employees whose employment is governed by one of the awards listed in schedule 1 of the Holidays Act. However, the federal government’s award modernisation process appears to have rendered the schedule 1 awards obsolete.
Accordingly, with the permanent establishment of the Family and Community Day public holiday, the bill removes all references to union picnic day and the schedule 1 awards. This outcome has received wide support and also means that there are no days lost in the school calendar and families have one less day that they need to make alternative childcare arrangements for over the school holidays to take advantage of this glorious time of the year in the ACT. I commend the bill to the Assembly.
Debate (on motion by Mrs Dunne) adjourned to the next sitting.
Building and Construction Industry (Security of Payments) Bill 2009
Mr Hargreaves, pursuant to notice, presented the bill, its explanatory statement and Human Rights Act compatibility statement.
Title read by Clerk.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for Disability and Housing, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Corrections) (10.58): I move:
That this bill be agreed to in principle.
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