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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-06-20 Daily Xml
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SKYLINK ADELAIDE

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna) (15:21): Good segue, Mr Speaker. I stand today to do something I have done very rarely in this place, and that is to name somebody. It is a privilege that we have as members of parliament and one that should be used most cautiously, and I do so very cautiously on this occasion. I am raising a matter brought to my attention by my constituent Mr Robin Freeman. Mr Freeman tells me that between January 2012 and August 2012 he worked as a bus driver for his now former employer, Mr Ron Payne, trading as Skylink Adelaide.

Skylink runs a shuttle bus service between Adelaide Airport and the hotels in the city. Mr Freeman was not paid according to the relevant award for his work and after his employer ignored his repeated requests for the correct wages, Mr Freeman took the matter to Fair Work Australia. I am told that Fair Work found in favour of Mr Freeman; however, the total money owed to Mr Freeman was never forthcoming.

On the advice of Fair Work Australia, Mr Freeman then sought redress through the South Australian Industrial Relations Court, where industrial magistrate Lieschke ordered in his favour. Magistrate Lieschke, in summarising the matter, said:

I order Mr Payne to pay Mr Freeman within 21 days the total following amounts in full and without any deduction, being $5,794.54 for underpayment of wages, $1,238.64 for superannuation, $2,000 for the pecuniary penalty and $400 interest, being a total of $9,433.18.

This was back in November 2012. In making this judgement, the magistrate took into account the failure of Mr Payne to rectify the underpayments despite repeated requests and the absence of any filed defence or explanation from Mr Payne. These amounts appear to be duly owed to Mr Freeman. However, sadly, Mr Freeman has been unable to enforce this judgement despite his very best efforts.

To better explain the injustice, Mr Freeman tells me that he was being paid $15.40 an hour, regardless of whether he worked weekends or public holidays. To put this in perspective, I believe Mr Freeman should have been paid just over $41 an hour for public holidays, not the $15.40. Additionally, there was a three-week period during July 2012 when Mr Freeman was not paid at all. For a worker to be treated this way is completely unacceptable and in total disregard of the law. The unpaid money has caused considerable financial hardship to my constituent, who is being harassed by debt collectors.

My constituent, Mr Freeman, believes that Mr Payne is still operating Skylink. I contacted Mr Payne directly, via letter dated 22 February 2013, to give him (that is, Mr Payne) the opportunity to resolve this matter. To date, I have not received a response to my letter. I believe I have given him adequate time to be fair. I have been told by my constituent that an arrest warrant has been issued now for Mr Payne and I encourage our law enforcement officers to do their very best to see this warrant is actioned, so that Mr Payne can be accountable.

I draw this matter very clearly to the attention of the airport and the hotels which use this service. They should know the kind of person they are dealing with when they have their customers sent around the city between the hotels and the airport.

In the remaining two minutes that I have, I wish to draw the attention of the house to a parliamentary research library paper which was placed in every member's pigeonhole today, and sent to them electronically as well. It is a paper called: 'Smoking Cessation: A Review of Recent Strategies and Proposals' prepared by Dr John Weste, the manager of research services, on my request.

I have a motion before the house, which I will not get into, but I hope this paper will provide good background reading for those who might want to participate in that debate. What I have asked Dr Weste to do is to look at the concept of endgame in smoking cessation. We are now getting to the point where relatively few people are smoking and the rate of people taking up smoking is declining.

A number of jurisdictions around the world have started talking about endgame strategies. This paper looks at those strategies and proposes some measures which might be taken by communities to make sure that the amount of smoking in the community is reduced and even get to the point where there is no smoking. That is something I think is worth considering and worth debating. I really commend Dr Weste on his paper. He really brings together all of the issues in a very coherent and sensible way, and I draw it to the attention of members of this place.

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