Page 137 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 26 February 2014
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Let me turn to the issue of portable long service leave. I do not support Mr Coe’s call for a hold on any increases to the portable long service leave levy. In fact, I remain rather concerned the Liberal Party continually fails to support the concept of portable long service leave. And I am sure we all remember that they are also on the record as attacking the concept of long service leave generally; they are on the record as saying that long service leave schemes are “a pain to industry”.
I am pleased to say that I support long service leave, and I also support portable long service leave for those in the industries that need it. There are some industries 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, but portable long service leave ensures that such persons still receive long service leave that they are entitled to.
As Mr Barr pointed out, the scheme is managed by the Long Service Leave Authority board. Just last year, we passed legislation to improve the administration of those schemes. The board uses actuarial data to recommend appropriate long service leave levies, and it regularly reviews the levies applied to the various industries. Denying any increase to the levies, even though they may have been examined and recommended by the authority board, would simply take away entitlements from workers who need and deserve them. Why would we say that people who work in building and construction, or cleaning, security or the community sector, should be denied appropriate long service leave? And I wonder how long this moratorium on long service leave levies was to stay in place. Is that a suggestion for a permanent moratorium or something rather less?
When it comes to commence and complete fees, we debated that in this place in October last year, when Mr Wall brought forward his motion calling on the Treasurer to waive all commence and complete fees for the Kingswim centre in Calwell. Members will recall that I put forward an amendment at that time calling on the government to review the scheme and to report to the Assembly by the end of this financial year. That was agreed to.
I agree that there are issues with the scheme. It was intended to prevent land banking, but we have seen cases where developers legitimately get caught in delays. I will be interested to see the report when it is tabled in June and whether the scheme meets the purpose for which it was set up while still giving a good outcome for the businesses that are operating in good faith but are subject to delays for various reasons. With that in mind, I think debate about reducing the fees or any changes to the scheme should wait until that review is available. That is why we have set it up—to take a detailed look at it, rather than simply taking a pre-emptive move as this motion suggests we should do.
I guess that what Mr Coe’s motion is getting at overall, and he has certainly made this clear in his comments, is a sense of overregulation and interference. I often hear concerns raised about excessive government regulations in relation to development in various places. I can understand that people do get frustrated at times, but at the same time most of these regulations are there for a good reason, such as ensuring building safety and quality.
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