Page 273 - Week 01 - Thursday, 11 February 2016
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MS BERRY (Ginninderra—Minister for Housing, Community Services and Social Inclusion, Minister for Multicultural and Youth Affairs, Minister for Sport and Recreation and Minister for Women) (3.48): It was interesting to hear the Leader of the Opposition saying that the Canberra Liberals will not ever cut penalty rates. Of course, they could not because penalty rates are legislated under the Fair Work Act and the responsibility lies with the federal government. But I guess from the comments he made that we can assume he meant that he would not support the federal Liberal government’s calls to have penalty rates cut or that the Canberra Liberals would not support the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s calls to have penalty rates cut. He is nodding to indicate that, for the record—not that I would ever encourage any interaction from across the chamber while I am trying to speak here.
Mr Wall may or may not be speaking today, but I guess he has changed his mind from his position in February last year when he talked about a number of areas of red tape, including weekend penalty rates, that needed to be re-examined to help to make— there is a typing error in this Canberra Times article—businesses grow, but there needs to be appropriate flexibility to meet the needs of young people and students to help them earn a bit of pocket money, be it enough to facilitate a bit of a social life or be self-sufficient while they are undertaking further studies. I guess he has changed his mind from then, particularly from the comments that we have been talking about today—about how important shiftwork and weekend work are to families who are trying to make ends meet.
Mr Gentleman talked about his own experience working shiftwork as well as Ms Burch’s. I spent eight years depending on shiftwork and weekend penalties to make the difference between vegemite on toast for dinner and an actual meal, so I personally know how important penalty rates are for low paid workers in this town. It is great to hear that the ACT government will continue to support low paid workers and will not support any calls by anybody to cut penalty rates for those workers.
When the Australian chamber of industry did their report, they found that the non-financial reasons for opting into weekend work—reasons like child care and study—were the smallest of all possible responses. They did not even crack a double-digit percentage from the questions they asked about why people were working shiftwork. Instead, the most popular reason workers cited for opting into weekend work was the higher rates of pay. Workers surveyed were also predominantly using that money to support themselves and their families. This includes giving them a decent quality of life, even if they had to work unsociable hours to do it.
Just before Christmas, when people were catching up with family and friends for Christmas barbecues, I was catching up with my friends down at Lake Ginninderra. One of my friends came along. We usually catch up every year with all our kids, but one of her kids, who is older now and works in retail, was working on the Sunday that we caught up, so he could not join that Christmas celebration. He works on Sunday so that he can earn that extra money. That is an important consideration whenever we are looking at these low paid workers and the hours that they work.
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