Page 1397 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 3 May 2016
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The majority of the direct care employees are personal or community care attendants. The ACT currently accounts for one per cent of the total residential direct care workforce in Australia. The non-direct care staff includes ancillary workers such as cooks, cleaners, gardeners and maintenance workers who account for 70 per cent of the non-direct care workforce, and managers and administrators who account for another 30 per cent.
Since the introduction of portable long service leave schemes in the ACT, evidence suggests that the representatives of employers, employees and administrators involved in their management generally present positive views of these schemes. In particular, they generally see that the advantages of portable long service leave as outweighing the costs and that the levy system is an effective way of collecting funds without imposing an administrative burden on employers.
It is also worth while to note that of the 22 aged-care providers currently operating in the ACT 10—nearly half—are already registered as employers for portable long service leave purposes under the community sector scheme. They already lodge quarterly returns and have established a good relationship with the Long Service Leave Authority.
The benefits of portable long service leave are great. There is already a considerable body of research indicating the importance of leave generally for employee health, wellbeing and work-life balance. Long hours without significant leave periods have been associated with stress-related illness, which also represents a cost for employers through higher levels of claims for workplace accidents, illness and mental health issues. Regular leave has also been associated with greater employee motivation and productivity.
European experience suggests that the tourism and hospitality sectors may benefit from extended leave provisions. The commonwealth government and taxpayers would avoid a substantial and growing financial outlay for the long service leave component of the fair entitlements guarantee in the case of business insolvencies in the ACT.
On a more technical point, the bill will allow the board of the authority to make timely adjustments to the levy based on a set rationale that is linked to returns. Any changes approved by the governing board would be made in light of advice from the authority’s appointed independent actuary and in consultation with relevant parties. Additionally, the levy may only be varied by notifiable instrument and after providing formal advice to the minister. I am pleased that the technical issue of the clarification of the scope of the building and construction industry scheme is also resolved by this bill.
I have already addressed a number of the aged-care providers’ concerns when presenting the bill. In addition, I wrote to the Canberra Business Chamber just recently in response to a number of concerns raised by them in a letter co-signed by Aged and Community Services NSW & ACT, BUPA, Aged Care Guild and Leading Age Services Australia, New South Wales and ACT. I again thank them for their input into this process, and I would like to briefly address a couple of their comments and their requests as well.
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