Page 1394 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 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) (11.52): In my first speech in this place I spoke about how proud I was to be joining a government that understood the need to protect the rights of workers to long service leave. I had joined the Assembly after 17 years working alongside cleaners, security guards, hospitality workers and aged-care workers. With respect to workers in low paid industries which have high levels of contracting, casualisation and employer change, protecting their right to long service leave requires government action.
I am very happy to see this bill expanding the portable long service leave scheme to cover even more workers. Having worked alongside aged-care employees, I know they are no different to public service workers or professional private sector workers. Most of them just want job security, decent hours and fair conditions. They want the basic entitlements that let them get on with what they are dedicated to doing, that is, caring for older people in our community.
Mrs Dunne has spoken in this place about how unique long service leave is to Australia and New Zealand. She is right in saying that it was originally enacted to allow workers in former colonies to sail home to England. But it is now part of the belief that we see throughout Australian society that people are worth more than their jobs. Particularly when we reflect on workers in aged care, this is both a mentally and physically demanding job and it is also essential work in our community. It is 24-hour, seven days a week shiftwork on low wages. They are entitled to have some fairness that might help to retain workers in the sector. Introducing a portable long service leave scheme to give these benefits and this fairness to this workforce is the right thing for this government to do.
Long service leave is an opportunity for workers who have given consistently to our community to take some time for other parts of their lives. In our multicultural community, long service leave gives people the opportunity to head home and spend significant time with their family. For people in the middle of busy working lives, it gives them a break, often at about the same time as many parents I know are looking to reconnect and spend some quality time with their teenage children. For some it is an opportunity to undertake further training, to pursue a passion or to travel. For others it is the time when they need to finish some unfinished DIY. Whatever workers choose to do with it, long service leave is an important way of saying that people deserve to live big, interesting and happy lives and still be able to provide for their families.
I would like to say thank you: to Minister Gentleman for pursuing this change; to the great employers around Canberra who are committed to ensuring workers in their industries can access their entitlements; and to all of the aged-care workers who wrote to and petitioned me over the last three years. This is a long-deserved change, and I hope that you find many interesting things to do with your well-deserved leave.
MR HINDER (Ginninderra) (11.55): I rise to speak in favour of the amendment bill. I commend the minister for ensuring that aged-care and waste management workers
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