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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-11-24 Daily Xml
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GO HOME ON TIME DAY

Mr SIBBONS (Mitchell) (15:39): Today is national Go Home On Time Day, and I will talk about a critical economic and social challenge: the continued improvement of workplace participation and productivity whilst also seeking to enable a healthy work-life balance. A report released by the Australian Institute, entitled 'Something for nothing: unpaid overtime in Australia', noted that Australians work two billion hours of unpaid overtime each year; this equates to $72 billion in unpaid wages.

We currently work some of the longest hours in the Western world, with an average full-time employee working an average of 44 hours a week. While some people are compensated, unpaid overtime is now more common than paid overtime. In 1856, Melbourne stonemasons were the first workers in the world to achieve an eight-hour day, and by the mid-20th century this condition was widely achieved throughout the industrialised world. However, since the 1980s the trend has been in the opposite direction towards a longer working week.

SafeWork SA describes work-life balance as 'the relationship between work and life commitments and how they impact on one another'. The 2010 report by the Centre for Work + Life at the University of South Australia notes that proper work-life outcomes are associated with poorer health, increased use of prescription medications, more stress and more dissatisfaction, with close personal relationships failing.

A poor work-life balance imposes high costs on individuals, families and the broader community. It also affects workplace costs as, when workers leave employment due to unacceptable hours, unsympathetic management or overwork, substantial flow-on costs are incurred through retraining and a decrease in product or service quality. Therefore, the economic costs go well beyond the home and the workplace and negatively impact the larger economy as a whole.

However, this is not a simple challenge to address. Currently, there are approximately five working-age Australians for every one person over 65 years of age; by 2050, the ratio will fall to 2.7. The challenge of an ageing population means that we need to increase our workforce participation rates, but Centre for Work + Life data reveals that most full-time workers would like to work fewer hours, even allowing for a reduction in income, while two-thirds of part-time workers would like to work more hours.

If we could find the flexibility to realise these preferences for working hours, there would be a significant improvement in labour force participation. More work needs to be done in this area to find solutions that will ensure economic prosperity and social wellbeing into the future. However, as a small starting point, I say we should set an example today in the house and encourage everybody to go home on time on national Go Home On Time Day.

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