Penalty Rates

Ms HILDYARD (Reynell) (15:29): I rise to speak about an issue that impacts thousands of people in Reynell, and indeed hundreds of thousands of South Australians. I am proud, as a unionist, as the mother of children who rely on penalty rates, as someone who has relied on them myself and as the member for Reynell, to stand here today and speak on behalf of thousands of workers who rely on penalty rates to put food on the table or to pay their rent.

Even the most minor cut to Sunday rates has a huge impact on people who are already struggling to make ends meet. Few families can afford this sort of hit: a hit that has been proposed in various fora by people who purport to support ordinary South Australians; namely, members of the Nick Xenophon Team.

I have had the privilege of representing workers in the community sector, in DV shelters, respite houses, help lines, airlines, call centres, libraries and council depots. I have heard over and over again what their weekend rates of pay mean to getting bills paid on time and paying for their kids to go on a school excursion. These are the South Australians, alongside those who work in hospitality, retail and emergency services, who give up their own precious family time to care for others, to keep us safe and connected, or to ensure our nights out at the football or a restaurant are enjoyable.

Cuts to penalty rates impact younger workers. However, those also negatively impacted are often middle-aged, female and supporting children. They are not in training or in unskilled jobs, their jobs are like any other and worthy of good conditions and appropriate rates of pay. Today, I place on record my concerns about the looming threat to penalty rates arising from the upcoming election and the Nick Xenophon Team.

This election, Mr Xenophon's running mate, Stirling Griff, may ascend to the Senate second behind Mr X himself. Mr Xenophon's longstanding campaign manager, Mr Griff, the architect of his failed bill to reduce penalty rates in federal parliament, may just slide in without being clear about his views on what these workers deserve. Mr Griff is on record calling penalty rates a noose around the neck of small business.

How people who rely on them feel about a man with these views getting elected is unknown because all we hear about is their first candidate, but with the Nick Xenophon Team you get more and, unfortunately, so much less for many people than just Nick Xenophon, whose own record on penalty rates is questionable and murky at the very best. On the Nick Xenophon Group official website, under 'Employment and Workplace Relations', authorised by Nick Xenophon, he states:

For small businesses with fewer than 20 full-time equivalent employees, penalty rates shouldn't apply during normal trading hours on weekends.

Whilst Mr Xenophon himself may have just for the moment, as we approach the 2 July federal election, wobbled on his longstanding position around penalty rates, his selection of candidates speaks volumes about his actual views. An The Advertiser survey of Nick Xenophon Team candidates found four Nick Xenophon Team candidates in Sturt, Port Adelaide, Wakefield and Adelaide would consider penalty rate cuts to businesses.

United Voice South Australia secretary, David Di Troia, who represents thousands and thousands of workers who rely on penalty rates, has said that Nick Xenophon does not seem to know what a fair wage is for ordinary working people. As Wirreanda Secondary School student Cheyenne Stocker said:

As a young person living away from home, penalty rates make a real difference. Penalty rates mean the difference between being able to catch public transport or being forced to find another way to get to work or school.

As her cousin said:

I work as a stock filler and without penalty rates I couldn't afford to send my daughter to day-care or travel the distance to get to work most nights.

As the feisty retiring member for Wills, Kelvin Thomson, wrote in a letter to the Restaurant & Catering Industry Association about penalty rates:

Your letter referred to changing social norms around weekend shopping times, a reduction in religious observance and a softening of trading hour restrictions.

The letter gave me the phone number of your Public Affairs Manager and invited me to contact him to discuss these issues and your Association's campaign. So I did. I rang last Saturday, and again on Sunday, but there was no answer.

Perhaps there is still some magic left in Saturdays and Sundays after all.

I concur and conclude with this: until the AFL Grand Final is played on a Monday, until the opening of our Festival is held on a weekday and our Christmas Pageant at a time other than Saturday morning, there is something special about the weekend, and those who work to support, serve and look after us and keep us safe across the weekend deserve to be compensated for missing out on all of these special moments and more.