Page 872 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 20 March 2012
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The amendments are pretty straightforward, but the pandemonium and farce that have gone on to get these amendments into this place today belie how simple these amendments are. I will talk about the pandemonium and farce a little later in the piece.
This bill makes a number of changes to administrative processes and worker entitlements, particularly in the construction industry scheme. I note the bill is the result of recommendations of the Long Service Leave Authority board. One matter worthy of particular mention is that the changes are not retrospective—that is what the minister has told us—and do not affect workers currently registered in their respective schemes. This is a matter that drew the attention of the scrutiny of bills committee, which raised the question of whether excluding existing workers from the new arrangements unduly affects them in terms of their right to equality before the law under the Human Rights Act. However, to some extent, at least this approach preserves arrangements they currently enjoy and may change to their detriment under the new legislation.
A number of other administrative changes are made in the bill, but I will not go through them here in detail. One of them, however, is worth particular mention. It would require the Long Service Leave Authority board to undertake all internal review requests within five days of receipt of the request. However, if the board for some reason does not deal with the request within the five-day period, then it is taken that the board has confirmed the decision. If that provision were to proceed, it would create the potential for review requests not to receive the attention they should, even to the point of not even making it on to the board agenda.
I am pleased the government recognised this anomaly when my staff drew it to the attention of officials in a briefing on the bill, and the government will introduce an amendment to fix this. It seems strange, however, that it should be my office with its very limited resources that could identify this anomaly and not the vast resources of the ACT public service at the minister’s disposal.
Mr Barr: They may not be as vast.
MRS DUNNE: Well, they are somewhat more vast than my one staff member, Mr Barr. This bill proposes changes that affect workers across the three industries whose employee long service leave entitlements are managed by the authority. The changes are, firstly, that the eligibility period is increased from 55 days to five years for workers who leave the sector due to total incapacity, retirement or death. This puts workers on an equal footing with other workers in our community.
Next, workers will no longer be able to take long service payments without actually taking leave. This, too, is considered a sensible approach and is the practice in most industries. However, I question the extent to which this will be able to be policed by the authority.
The bill also clarifies that the Long Service Leave Authority will have 21 days to process long service leave claims. Currently the formula has the same effect but is more cumbersome. The proposed structure provides more certainty and flexibility. It
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