Page 106 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 13 February 2019
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Even for those people who are, perhaps, more focused on profits and productivity, it is also a case of treating workers well and giving them proper breaks, which actually tends to improve productivity. It is a win-win. When people do continue to work instead of getting their break, be it outside the usual working hours or over the holiday period, they should be fairly compensated for that. For those people who worked over the summer holidays which, as Ms Cody says, included people in a wide range of services—from health to police, to emergency services, to hospitality, to public service—thank you for continuing to work so that the rest of us can enjoy a break and so that our city can continue to function at the level that we all enjoy.
A foundational principle of the rules and regulations that govern the working lives of people in the ACT should be that people have lives beyond work where they spend time with their families and enjoy other personal and community activities. People are not mere tools of production. Overworking is damaging to people’s health and wellbeing. It can be harmful to family life and is also harmful to community life as people lack the time and energy to give back to the community.
These are some of the reasons that the Greens have been pleased to support all the portable long service leave schemes that operate in the ACT. Portable long service leave schemes protect the entitlements of workers in industries that are characterised by high levels of mobility and brief employment. The transient nature of these industries means that people can work continuously without actually accruing the long service leave that workers in secure industries enjoy. Portable long service leave closes this gap by allowing workers to transfer long service leave entitlements between employers in the same industry. We now have portable long service leave in place in a range of industries.
One question I would like to raise, and Mr Rattenbury has previously raised this in the Assembly, is the question of whether it is time for Australia’s long service leave scheme to go through a more fundamental, modernising transformation. It is worth considering whether all long service leave could, in fact, be portable, recognising that today people change employers and industries fairly frequently. Today’s working environment is not just the same as the days when somebody might be a company employee for their entire working life.
A few years ago the Senate education and employment references committee conducted an inquiry on this issue. The committee recommended that detailed modelling be undertaken by the government to determine the potential cost to employers of extending portable long service leave entitlements to all workers, and this is an issue we would like to see explored further.
I note Ms Cody’s references to the secure local jobs code. The Greens have supported this code because we support the right of workers to be paid properly, to be treated fairly and to work in safety. We support strong measures to prevent the exploitation of workers, to prevent unsafe practices and to stop employers avoiding the obligations they owe to workers. We support transparency in ACT government contracts.
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