Page 1247 - Week 04 - Thursday, 7 April 2016
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Except for a small number of administrative and supportive staff, the labour force in the waste management sector consists of drivers and sorters. Drivers are normally characterised as being long-term employees who work full time and frequently perform the same role for decades. However, contracts and companies may change hands, and this can make it difficult for drivers to take advantage of long service leave. Sorters work at recycling and landfill sites to sort recycling and waste for processing and are normally characterised by high levels of staff turnover.
Unlike the community sector scheme, the contract cleaning scheme was designed to be narrow rather than broad. Under this scheme, only particular classes of occupations within the industry are covered, and then only where a contract for cleaning services is entered into. Under that arrangement, ad hoc cleaning is excluded.
Madam Speaker, to maintain consistency with the existing contract cleaning scheme, the amendments provide for the scheme to be extended only to garbage collectors, that is, drivers under ACT government waste collection contract and sorters at waste management facilities nominated by a ministerial declaration. This will promote regulatory efficiency by clearly identifying covered workers and therefore minimise ongoing employer administrative and accounting costs.
The act also establishes a Long Service Leave Authority—the authority—to administer the schemes. Employers for each covered industry must pay a quarterly levy into a fund managed by the authority from which workers are paid when they access long service leave. Currently levies are 1.47 per cent of wages for the security industry, 1.6 per cent for the contract cleaning and community sector industries and 2.5 per cent for the building and construction industry.
The authority maintains separate funds for each scheme and separate registers of employers and workers. The authority operates off budget and is funded by the levies it collects from employers. Currently the levy rate for each industry is determined by the minister, following a recommendation from the authority’s governing board, which in turn is advised by an appointed actuary. A triennial review of each industry is carried out by the actuary, and advice on the appropriateness of the levy is provided.
The bill proposes amendments to the act to allow the governing board to make minor adjustments to employer levies to meet the prevailing economic circumstances of covered industries. The amendments provide that the governing board be empowered but not obliged to make minor adjustments to the levy rate if the ratio of total assets over total liabilities moves outside a prescribed bandwidth.
Any changes approved by the governing board would be made in light of the advice from the authority’s appointed actuary. The levy may only be varied by a notifiable instrument and after providing formal advice to the minister. It also must be less than or equal to the variation of 40 basis points per financial year of the current levy for that covered industry. This approach will allow the board to make timely adjustments based on a set rationale that is linked to returns.
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