Holidays (Christmas Day) (No. 2) Amendment Bill

Introduction and First Reading

Received from the Legislative Council and read a first time.

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (16:16): I move:

That the second reading be taken into consideration forthwith.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 22

Noes 22

Majority 0

The SPEAKER: There being 22 ayes and 22 noes it falls to me to cast a ballot. I cast my vote with the ayes. I make this statement following that decision, as has been the custom of Speaker's breaking a deadlock. I have always believed in a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. That is not a principle exclusive to the Liberal Party or the Labor Party but a principle that I and many others in the state believe in. The motion passes.

Motion thus carried.

Second Reading

Mr MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Leader of the Opposition) (16:23): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to be able to make a contribution on something that, quite frankly, I cannot believe we are even debating. What has South Australia's parliament descended into, to find itself debating whether or not people working on Christmas Day should be getting recognition for it?

I have to say that over the course of the last 3½ years, particularly the last six weeks, I have been stunned as to the events that have occurred in this place, but you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard that the Premier of this state was opposed to Christmas Day, of all days, being declared a public holiday.

What sort of state are we living in where our status in terms of holding an exclusive position is relegated to being the only state or territory in our great federation that is not treating Christmas Day as a public holiday? There are a whole range of adjectives that could be allocated towards all those in this place who would hold the view that Christmas Day should not be a public holiday, and I have no doubt they will be thoroughly canvassed in the coming hours during the course of this debate.

What is not in dispute I would have thought is that, as a state and as a country, for over 100 years we have established that Christmas Day is an important day. It is a special day. It is a unique day. Regardless of your faith, regardless of your background, Christmas Day is acknowledged, I think quite widely, as an opportunity for people to spend quality time with their family and friends, to be able to enjoy the custom of having a summer Christmas celebrating an important milestone.

The sad reality is, though, that there are so many people in our community who do not get to enjoy public holidays as much as the vast majority. Those are the people who are serving our community when others are enjoying time off. I think of the nurses, the doctors, the police officers, the ambulance officers, all those people in the MFS, all those people who are in paid responsibility and even in an unpaid responsibility in our volunteer emergency services, the SES and the CFS. It is not uncommon for people in these important roles to find themselves sacrificing probably the most sacred day of the year in terms of family time in the name of everybody else's safety.

Often we hear members in this place rise to their feet wanting to pay homage to those people who have made big sacrifices in the course of the pandemic, such as people in our health system who have given up a lot, and what does this government say to those people their reward will be this Christmas? More work and less pay. The Premier of this state astoundingly believes that the reward for nurses working on Christmas Day should be a pay cut. It is an absolutely astonishing position.

As this debate transpires, there will be an opportunity to explore whether or not the member for Newland believes his constituents working on Christmas Day should not get paid penalty rates, and rest assured we on this side of the house will do everything we possibly can to ensure that every last constituent in suburbs like Tea Tree Gully, Ridgehaven and Fairview Park are fully attuned to whether or not the member for Newland believes that people deserve penalty rates on Christmas Day. Similarly, the member for Elder, the member for King, the member for Stuart and even the member for Finniss, no-one will be spared scrutiny when it comes to whether or not they believe that Christmas Day is different.

Allow me to anticipate some of the arguments that the Marshall Liberal government will proffer during their rationale as to why Christmas Day should not be a public holiday. Back in 2010, the same circumstance occurred. But what was different back in 2010 was that we had a federal Labor government at the helm of responsibility across the country with fundamentally different industrial relation conditions than what we have today.

Throughout critical industries there were enterprise agreements that put in place very specific arrangements that you usurp the South Australian Holidays Act—which is a 1910 act, from memory—to ensure that everyone on Christmas Day got due reward if they were sacrificing their labour, and similarly for those people who were not able to work as a result of its being a non-trade day.

Since then, over the course of the last 11 years the industrial landscape has changed dramatically in no small part because we have had a federal Liberal government at the helm since 2013. Now we find ourselves in this extraordinary situation where South Australians, through no fault of their own, can find themselves missing out on penalties rates or being paid on and around Christmas Day.

South Australia is not the only jurisdiction in this situation because other states have in place arrangements where the Christmas Day falling on Saturday substitutes to the Monday. We are not the only state with a Public Holidays Act that does that. What has occurred in other jurisdictions is that their governments of both political persuasions have sought to act, either through legislative change or, indeed, the government of the day using its power, using its authority, to declare Christmas Day a public holiday.

At any moment since this issue was first aerated with the government, which I understand was sometime in February/March this year, the Premier of the state could have said, 'I'm going to fix this problem. I'm going to fix this problem and I'm going to use my authority to make it Christmas Day,' and everything would have been solved. I do not even think there would be too many employers who would complain about this.

There might be a couple of people who express a degree of frustration, but by and large the overwhelming majority of the employer community do accept that Christmas Day should be a public holiday. In fact, I have heard no shortage of arguments from the employer and industry groups across our state over years constantly argue for a degree of uniformity across the federation when it comes to industrial relations laws and conditions, but here in South Australia there is no uniformity because this Premier refuses to act.

This Premier has actively decided not to declare Christmas Day a public holiday, which not only deprives those workers of the industrial relations conditions they would otherwise reasonably expect but also puts South Australia at odds with every other jurisdiction in the commonwealth—so no consistency and no fairness. It begs the question: what is going on here?

I would have thought there would be a few members opposite, many of whom proclaim very strong, value-orientated positions in regard to their faith, who would have the view that Christmas Day was particularly important, but thus far we have heard radio silence from them—radio silence. I would have thought there would be some members opposite who sympathise with a large number of their own constituents who will be working Christmas Day in the name of their service.

I would have thought there would be some members opposite who might have areas that have large shopping centres within them, like the Tea Tree Plaza shopping centre, where there are thousands of workers, who would think, 'I want to make sure they are looked after.' I would have thought that there are those opposite who have a penchant for working on Christmas Day.

Let's take, for example, the member for Hammond. We know how seriously he takes his obligations to work Christmas Day, and he sure as hell wants to make sure he gets paid for it. He wants to make sure that he gets paid for it. He wants to make sure that when he works on Christmas Day, representing the good constituents of Coomandook down at Glen Osmond, that he is getting remunerated accordingly. I am astounded that we have not heard anything from the member for Hammond during the course of this debate.

But, when you distil it all down, there is just one simple question here that needs to be answered. There is only one question and there is no complexity to this: it is a simple question of whether or not you believe someone working on Christmas Day should get paid due recognition for it. I would have those members opposite know—well, let me put this another way: I would invite members opposite to reflect on something that none of us in this place can avoid, and that is that we are all incredibly well remunerated.

Members in this place are well paid. We will not spend our Christmas Days wondering whether or not we can pay the bills or buy the kids the presents we desperately want to purchase for them, because we are well remunerated. But there are other people in our state who are remunerated a lot less than any of us—a lot less. Forgive me if I do think about people working in the retail industry who are on salaries for full-time work commensurate to one-third of what a member of parliament gets.

When you ask those people in fast food or in retail to give up their income for working on Christmas Day, it seems a little bit stiff that people on 200 grand a year are going to say, 'No, no, you can't get penalty rates.’ I find that an egregious position, quite frankly. I would have thought that it was incumbent on all of us every now and then, when we contemplate the decisions we make, to walk a mile in other people's shoes and to think about the consequence of this decision for the people it affects from their perspective.

What those opposite are seeking to do here, if they vote against this legislation, as they did in the upper house, is to ensure that large multinational corporates, whose profits are higher than ever before, retain more money at the expense of people working for them on Christmas Day. I am not the guy who normally argues and uses highly emotive language about corporate greed and the excesses of capital weighing down on workers in an oppressive way. That is not the sort of industrial relations leadership I have ever sought to aspire to. But I just cannot believe we are in a situation where there has never been a more evident example of corporate greed having its impact on the Liberal Party of this state.

The Liberal Party of this state ostensibly have a position against people on low incomes getting paid a little bit extra for giving up time with their family and their kids on Christmas Day. I submit to those opposite: imagine you are the worker waking up on Christmas morning, not seeing your kids opening the presents because you are the nurse at the hospital, or you are an ambulance officer doing a shift looking after South Australians, or you are someone working in a hospitality venue preparing Christmas lunch, which is a busy time of the year. Imagine you are one of those workers, leaving the house at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning before your kids get up and open the presents under the tree from Father Christmas. Imagine you are that person.

Now imagine that you are that person and the Premier of this state says, 'No, you can go do that work, thanks very much, and you are going to get paid less than you normally do on a public holiday.' What sort of state are we living in? What sort of state are we living in where we are even debating this question? This does not accord with basic Australian values, basic Australian values that say we try to look after others, particularly those who are in the service of us, particularly those who are giving up the most sacred and the most precious time we have in our community. What sort of values does it speak to that this Premier, given all the authority vested in him, does not even deploy that authority in the name of Christmas Day?

I do not know what the point of being in charge is if you are not willing to do an occasional kind act for thousands of people that almost no-one would complain about. Who would complain if the Premier of South Australia declared Christmas Day a public holiday? Would anyone actually complain about that, apart from maybe Rob Lucas? To be fair to the Treasurer of South Australia, he is the one guy I would expect to be consistent about this.

Ever since Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister and he got elected to the parliament, he has absolutely done everything he can to deny working people just that little bit extra recognition for their sacrifice in the name of community. So we will spare the Treasurer from our judgement because he has been utterly consistent. But for what reason, for what possible purpose, for what constituency does the Premier believe that he should not use the authority vested in him to declare Christmas Day a public holiday?

Well, when it comes to consistency, on this side of the house we remain true. We in the Australian Labor Party have always subscribed to the idea that those people who are giving up their labour deserve to be remunerated fairly for that. We have always subscribed to the view that those people who are making big sacrifices at particularly special times deserve a little bit of extra recognition for that.

At a time when we see the profit share of our economy accelerating to the highest levels on record, at a time when we see capital being rewarded with bigger and bigger and bigger returns every single year and at a time when we see wage growth continue to stagnate relative to capital growth in this country, we believe that people on Christmas Day should get paid public holiday rates accordingly and we will vote accordingly and we will continue to mount the argument, as we have for over 100 years as a party, that people working on Christmas Day, heaven forbid, might get a little bit of extra recognition for it. We commend the bill to the house. We call on this house to pass the bill expeditiously and we call on the Premier to once, just once, use his authority and show some heart.

Standing Orders Suspension

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS (West Torrens) (16:39): I move:

That standing and sessional orders be and remain suspended to allow the passage of the bill through all remaining stages without delay.

The Hon. D.C. VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN: I seek clarification. Would that be through until 5 o'clock for the Auditor-General's Report or all the way through?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: All the way through, through all remaining stages.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I appreciate that clarification being sought and given. There is not an absolute majority present, so please ring the bells.

An absolute majority of the whole number of members being present:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do you wish to speak to the motion, member for West Torrens?

The Hon. A. KOUTSANTONIS: Just briefly, sir. Regardless of your opinion on this legislation, regardless of what your views are, whether you are with us on the penalty rates or you are with the Premier opposed to penalty rates, I think it is incumbent on all of us to give South Australian business and the South Australian community certainty about what is coming up this holiday season. People need to know if they will be paid penalty rates to work on Christmas Day. Businesses need to know.

So I say to the government members, regardless of the government decision, one way or another, let's just sort this out now. Let's just make a decision. Let parliament have its say. The Legislative Council has spoken. It is time for the House of Assembly to speak. If it is rejected here, it is rejected here. If it is passed here, it is passed here. At least, let's let people know some certainty before Christmas. That is the least that we can do for them.

The house divided on the motion:

Ayes 21

Noes 24

Majority 3

Motion thus negatived; debate adjourned.