Page 4181 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 26 November 2013
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That is patently a nonsense and needs to be fixed. It allows for a common fund that will be a central administrative fund the various components will contribute to to run the scheme itself. The bill works with other acts, particularly commonwealth acts, and the information for that rests in the schedules.
Clause 14 is interesting. New sections 12 and 13 grant the minister some powers. The briefing tells us they are no more than the existing powers, but they clear up some ambiguity, and both the powers in these sections will, of course, be disallowable instruments.
There was consultation with the board and the authority, and the board has employee reps on it. We found that peak bodies had not been consulted, but through their representatives on the board they seem to be in agreement with the changes to streamline and tidy up the act.
A number of the clauses are simply movement of existing items to make the bill work better. So, in that way, it is simply a tidying up of the existing act. With that in mind, the opposition will support the bill.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (11.07): On behalf of the Greens I will be supporting the Long Service Leave (Portable Schemes) Amendment Bill. As Minister Corbell noted when he tabled this bill last sitting, the changes in this bill make several administrative adjustments to ensure the Long Service Leave Authority can effectively administer the territory’s portable long service leave schemes. The changes do not give effect to any material change in policy.
Portable long service leave is an important scheme designed to protect the entitlements of workers who work in industries that are characterised by high levels of brief employment and mobility. Someone working in Canberra as, for example, a cleaner, might spend 20 years doing the same job but move between different employers. Usually these changes would prevent that person being able to receive long service leave entitlements. Portable long service leave ensures that such a person still receives long service leave. It is important that the legislation allows these portable long service leave schemes to be administered effectively.
The territory now has four of these portable long service leave schemes. They operate in the building and construction industry, the contract cleaning industry, the community sector industry and, most recently, the security industry. The Greens have been strong supporters of these schemes, and I was present in the Assembly to vote in favour of establishing both the community sector and security industry portable long service leave schemes last term, and I was pleased to offer my support.
I believe the ACT is still the only Australian jurisdiction that has a community sector scheme. I must say, I remain quite surprised that we have a party in the Assembly that did not support portable long service leave last term, because it was last term that the Canberra Liberals voted against both the community sector and security industry schemes. Mrs Dunne, on behalf of the Liberal Party at that time, made it quite clear they did not believe in the notion of portability of long service leave. She also observed that the schemes are a pain to industry. It is evident some years down the
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