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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2023-11-29 Daily Xml
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Public Holidays Bill

Second Reading

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Premier, Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, Minister for Defence and Space Industries, Minister for Climate, Environment and Water) (16:38): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Today, I introduce the Public Holidays Bill 2023. This bill modernises and streamlines South Australia's public holiday legislation, bringing our laws into the 21st century and rectifying longstanding issues that employers, workers and regulators have had dealing with the outdated and archaic Holidays Act 1910.

This bill follows commitments made by the government during the last state election, as well as consultation through a public survey conducted on the YourSAy website earlier this year. This bill delivers on our election commitment to ensure that Christmas Day is treated as a public holiday every year, regardless of which day of the week it falls. Currently, if Christmas Day falls on a Saturday, then the public holiday moves to the following Monday and Christmas is treated as a normal trading day. This means that workers miss out on penalty rates when rostered to work away from their families and friends on Christmas.

The former Liberal government had the opportunity to close this terrible loophole when it last occurred in 2021, but it refused to do so. In opposition, Labor was pleased to support a private member's bill to make Christmas Day a public holiday, and we are even more pleased to initiate this reform in government. With this reform we join every other state and territory in Australia that has now made this change, a reform supported by nearly 95 per cent of the respondents in the YourSAy survey.

The bill also brings South Australia into line with every other mainland state by declaring Easter Sunday a public holiday. This ensures that workers are appropriately remunerated when rostered to work on this day and was also strongly supported in the YourSAy survey. Easter is a special time of year for many, whether that is for religious reasons, family gatherings or just a time to refresh.

Declaring Easter Sunday to be a public holiday will allow many people to continue those traditions with the knowledge that our workplace relations laws provide certain rights when it comes to public holidays. The addition of the Easter Sunday public holiday is not expected to have a significant impact on trade, given that under the Shop Trading Hours Act 1977 most stores are closed on Easter Sunday in any event.

The bill also aligns with South Australia's rules for additional and substitute public holidays with the Eastern States. This means that most public holidays will occur on the same days across jurisdictions, reducing confusion and disruption to business and improving interstate tourism opportunities. It also includes a number of technical amendments, including removing outdated and archaic terminology, removing the proscription of all Sundays as a public holiday and permanently moving the public holiday on the third Monday in May to the second Monday in March, consistent with longstanding practice since 2006.

The bill includes consequential amendments to the Shop Trading Hours Act 1977 to ensure special trading arrangements applicable to additional public holidays are maintained under these new laws. The bill also amends the Shop Trading Hours Act 1977 so that in the case of a special public holiday being proclaimed, such as the Queen's memorial public holiday, the minister may simultaneously declare a shop trading exemption without needing to consult on the exemption.

The total impact of the bill will be an average of 1.1 additional public holidays each year over the next decade. This takes into account both the Easter Sunday public holiday and changes to additional and substitute holidays, which largely balance out evenly. If passed, the bill will come into effect from 1 January 2024. The only change in the 2024 calendar year would be the addition of the Easter Sunday public holiday. I commend the bill to the house and seek leave to have the explanation of clauses inserted into Hansard without my reading it.

Leave granted.

Explanation of Clauses

1—Short title

2—Commencement

These clauses are formal.

3—Days fixed as public holidays

This clause sets out the days that are public holidays in each year and provides for additional and substitute public holidays as follows:

where 25 December or 1 January falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the following Monday will be an additional public holiday; and

where 26 December falls on a Saturday, the following Monday will be an additional public holiday; and

where 26 December falls on a Sunday or Monday, the following Tuesday will be an additional public holiday; and

where 26 January falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the following Monday will be a public holiday instead of that day; and

the Governor may, by proclamation, substitute another day to be a public holiday instead of a day appointed by this clause to be a public holiday.

4—Part-day public holidays

This clause provides that the part of the day from 7pm until 12 o'clock midnight on 24 December and 31 December are public holidays.

5—Additional special public holidays may be proclaimed

This clause allows the Governor to appoint a day to be an additional public holiday, or part of a day to be an additional part-day public holiday, by proclamation which may apply throughout the State or within a specified district or locality.

6—Public offices to be closed on public holidays

This clause provides that all offices of the Public Service will be closed on public holidays unless an office is specially required by law to be kept open on the public holiday and nothing in the measure prevents the responsible Minister in charge of an administrative unit from requiring the services of officers of the unit during a public holiday in case of an emergency.

7—Bank holidays

This clause provides that all Sundays and public holidays are taken to be bank holidays. It allows the Governor to substitute another day to be a bank holiday instead of a day appointed by this clause to be a bank holiday, appoint an additional bank holiday or appoint a part of a day to be a bank half holiday by proclamation which may apply throughout the State or within a specified district or locality.

All authorised deposit-taking institutions within the meaning of the Banking Act 1959 of the Commonwealth (ADIs) must be closed on bank holidays and during a bank half holiday but the Governor may, by proclamation, authorise the opening of ADIs within a specified area on a bank holiday or bank half holiday.

8—Payments and other acts on public holidays etc

This clause provides that a person is not compellable to make a payment or do an act on a public holiday, bank holiday or Saturday that they would not be compellable to make or do on a Sunday before the commencement of this Act. It also provides that an obligation to make a payment or do an act on a public holiday, bank holiday or Saturday will apply to the next day that is not a public holiday, bank holiday or Saturday, unless the law specially requires the person to make the payment or do the act on the public holiday, bank holiday or Saturday. A reference in this clause to a public holiday does not include a part-day public holiday. This clause applies in relation to a day on which a bank half holiday occurs as if the whole day had been proclaimed a bank holiday.

Schedule 1—Related amendments, repeals and transitional provisions

Part 1—Amendment of Adelaide Cemeteries Authority Act 2001

1—Amendment of section 20—Plans of management for Authority cemeteries

Part 2—Amendment of Bail Act 1985

2—Amendment of section 3—Interpretation

Part 3—Amendment of Bills of Sale Act 1886

3—Amendment of section 2—Interpretation

Part 4—Amendment of Botanic Gardens and State Herbarium Act 1978

4—Amendment of section 27—Regulations

Part 5—Amendment of Building Work Contractors Act 1995

5—Amendment of section 36—Right to terminate certain domestic building work contracts

Part 6—Amendment of Children and Young People (Safety) Act 2017

6—Amendment of section 16—Interpretation

Part 7—Amendment of Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995

7—Amendment of section 4—Interpretation

Part 8—Amendment of Fair Trading Act 1987

8—Amendment of section 43—Unlawful actions and representations

Part 9—Amendment of Fire and Emergency Services Act 2005

9—Amendment of section 3—Interpretation

Part 10—Amendment of Land and Business (Sale and Conveyancing) Act 1994

10—Amendment of section 3—Interpretation

Part 11—Amendment of Legislation Interpretation Act 2021

11—Amendment of section 4—Standard definitions

Part 12—Amendment of Magistrates Act 1983

12—Amendment of section 15—Recreation leave

Part 13—Amendment of Marine Parks Act 2007

13—Amendment of section 3—Interpretation

Part 14—Amendment of Mental Health Act 2009

14—Amendment of section 3—Interpretation

Part 15—Amendment of Mining Act 1971

15—Amendment of section 9AA—Waiver of exemption (including cooling-off)

Part 16—Amendment of Parliament (Joint Services) Act 1985

16—Amendment of section 18—Recreation leave

Part 17—Amendment of Public Trustee Act 1995

17—Amendment of section 3—Interpretation

Part 18—Amendment of Residential Parks Act 2007

18—Amendment of section 3—Interpretation

Part 19—Amendment of Retail and Commercial Leases Act 1995

19—Amendment of section 20E—Implementation of preferential right

Part 20—Amendment of Second-hand Vehicle Dealers Act 1995

20—Amendment of section 3—Interpretation

Part 21—Amendment of Shop Trading Hours Act 1977

21—Amendment of section 4—Interpretation

This clause amends section 4 of the principal Act to delete the definition of public holiday which currently excludes Sundays.

22—Amendment of section 5—Exemptions

This clause amends section 5 of the principal Act to provide that certain subsections of that section (that set out matters the Minister may and must have regard to when deciding whether to grant or declare an exemption, circumstances in which the Minister must not grant or declare exemptions, consultation requirements and judicial review entitlements in relation to a proposed exemption) do not apply to an exemption granted or declared in relation to a day appointed as an additional public holiday by proclamation under section 5(1)(a) of the measure.

23—Amendment of section 13—Hours during which shops may be open

This clause makes amendments to section 13 of the principal Act consequential to the enactment of the measure and removes references to specific public holidays where referring to public holidays generally is appropriate.

Part 22—Amendment of Stock Mortgages and Wool Liens Act 1924

24—Amendment of section 4—Interpretation

Parts 1 to 20 (inclusive) and Part 22 of this Schedule make related amendments to the Acts specified consequential to the enactment of the measure.

Part 23—Repeal of Holidays Act 1910

25—Repeal of Act

This clause repeals the Holidays Act 1910.

Part 24—Transitional provision

26—References to public holidays

This clause is a transitional provision that provides that a provision of an Act enacted, or instrument made, before the commencement of the measure refers to a public holiday within the meaning of the Holidays Act 1910 and will be taken to include a Sunday unless the contrary intention appears.

Mr COWDREY (Colton) (16:42): Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution on the bill before us today, that being the Public Holidays Bill 2023. I do so not really knowing where to start with this. I think the easiest place to begin this contribution is to look at the process that has been undertaken to get to the point that we are at now. I do indicate that I am the lead speaker for the opposition in doing so.

What we have here is something that I would say is not standard practice in terms of the consultation process around this bill. In fact, the Deputy Premier herself would say that it is not standard practice, because she said so yesterday. In the committee stage of the debate on another bill, the Deputy Premier put on record that it was standard practice on IR-related bills that affect business that there would be a consultation draft provided to business groups and businesses affected. Those were the very words of the Deputy Premier yesterday. Today, less than 24 hours later, it has come to the fore that there was zero consultation with the business community on this particular proposal.

What we have is the sham of a consultation process around what was the actual commitment by the Labor Party coming into the last election around the Christmas Day holiday. In fact, the minister himself provided some answers to me after the briefing, where we were able to ascertain a number of useful bits of information from his staff in regard to this bill, given that those whom we had talked to had not been provided with any information in regard to what was happening.

What we got was a time line and a procedure that involved going out to consultation nearly a year ago asking the following questions: firstly, 'Do you think Christmas Day should always be a public holiday regardless of which day it falls on?' That seems like a fairly straightforward question that I can understand there would be straightforward support or non-support of if it was distributed to businesses and other organisations affected alike.

The second question involved in that consultation was: 'Please let us know any other changes you feel should be made to the Holidays Act 1910 and why.' That was the extent of the consultation for the proposal to make Easter Sunday a public holiday. That is the level of detail that small and family businesses across the state were provided. It was not the actual proposal that Easter Sunday should be a public holiday.

Suffice to say, the government have proudly said that there was not much pushback about Easter Sunday. I wonder why. It would actually take the government to ask the question as to whether Easter Sunday should be a public holiday, if they were going to elicit a response from the business community.

Do you know why that was done? It was for the same reason that this bill is before the house today, in the very last week of parliament for the year. The government was hoping that this would slowly disappear out of the news cycle so that many small and family businesses would not pick up that the government was out to make this change. That is exactly why there was zero consultation with the small and family business community in regard to this change. It is insincere. The process that has been described around this change by the government has been misleading. Even this morning we had the minister on ABC radio saying:

It's always important to consult. We went out with an exceptionally thorough consultation from the end of last year well into this year. We've had hundreds of responses including from many of the main industry groups…

They did get responses, 11 of them in fact. I am not sure that I can call that number many. There were 11 responses from the industry groups and other providers but none of them about the question of Easter Sunday, because it was not the question that was asked.

Had the government bothered to entertain the proposal to perhaps take, as the Deputy Premier has advised is standard practice in IR-related changes, a discussion draft out to those organisations that represent small and family business, perhaps they would have learnt what we have in the last few days, the time that has been made available to us to talk to the community around what these changes may mean, the impacts they may have on the South Australian community.

What we have done is do the government's job for them. We have gone out and talked to those organisations that represent small and family business in South Australia. Why? Because they are the businesses that are going to be affected more than anybody else by these changes. They are the mum-and-dad cafes. They are the regional South Australian pubs. They are the small coffee shops in Henley Square. These are the people who are going to be affected by this change, and these are the people the government has proactively chosen not to talk to. Why? Because it knew this would not be popular with them.

In going out and talking to those organisations that represent small and family business across South Australia, what have we learnt? From comments provided to us, there is significant concern around NDIS providers because, under the commonwealth arrangements, as has been advised to me by these groups through those representations that have been made, the NDIS only provides an allocation of up to 10 public holidays a year.

Are the government keen to tell us at any point what they plan to do to help those NDIS providers that provide services to those living with a disability in our communities? Are they going to outline to us where they think that changes should be made? Perhaps if they had gone and talked to providers of aged care, one that has made representations to us through a representative body, that again through federal funding models there is only an allocation for a certain number of public holidays a year. Have the government considered that? Have the government talked to any of those businesses that provide aged-care services across South Australia? The answer is no.

Perhaps, if they had taken the time to talk to representatives from Ai Group, they may have learned of manufacturers who are not able to turn equipment off over a 24-hour period who have to operate no matter what to ensure that they are able to continue to employ their employees to ensure that they are able to continue their operations. Did the government talk to those businesses? Did the government talk to those families who are trying to make ends meet? No.

Did the government talk to anybody who runs a small cafe who may be opening over the Easter period, opening on Easter Sunday perhaps particularly, to ensure that they are able to reclaim some of the smaller margins that they make over the other days of the Easter period? Did the government go out and talk to any of those mums and dads who are sitting over the kitchen table looking at their balance sheets, trying to work out how they continue to operate in an environment where electricity costs are skyrocketing and in an environment where this government has gone out at every opportunity to increase costs of doing business in our state? No, they did not talk to one small business.

Did the government talk to the AHA? Did the government talk to them about what it means for the publican out in the country, running their pub, keeping youth in the country town employed? No. Did the government talk to any of the cafe owners around South Australia, any of the coffee shops, anybody running a small business about what impact this could have on their businesses, on their livelihoods, on their ability to employ South Australians, on their ability to keep their businesses running? No.

All we got from the minister, the Attorney-General, was a couple of phone calls to those organisations the night before he introduced the bill to let them know this was happening. That is all that was afforded to small and family business in this state over a major decision that was going to impact them. That is the standard that this government has set.

The question then moves on to what is the SDA's role in this—the shoppies union. We are well aware of the existing links between many members of this house and the shoppies union. Through the government briefing, we got to the bottom of who actually proposed this change, of the 11 submissions the government had, and funnily enough to the question that had nothing to do with Easter Sunday. The answer from the SDA was that Easter Sunday needed to be made a public holiday as a matter of priority, essentially. So, no other submission: this idea has come from one party, one organisation, and that is the shoppies union. The shoppies union in South Australia is effectively dictating government policy, if we are to interpret the set of circumstances rightly.

Did the Premier talk, as we have already discussed, to any of the small and family businesses about the potential to make this change? We know the answer is no. The question then becomes: did the Premier walk into the SDA conference announcing that he had secured an extra public holiday for them? That is a question we would love to hear the answer to, from the government.

What this reminds me of, more than anything, is this sort of influence: I remember that a number of years ago Hendrik Gout for Channel 7 did an exposé on the SDA's influence on the Labor Party in South Australia. The exposé was called 'the pyramid of power', or something similar to that, and it showed the links of how the SDA officials had made their way into the Labor Party in South Australia—the tentacles of influence. It highlighted the role, during the Rann years, of the shoppies union boss of the time, who of course is the now Premier. From memory, he may have looked slightly different in that exposé; I believe he may not have had the active athletic career that he perhaps had in his time of running for higher office.

It is very clear that in South Australia at the moment we do not have tentacles of influence coming from the SDA into the Labor Party. It is clear that the Labor Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the SDA. The shoppies union is in charge here. That much is clear without a shadow of a doubt. The SDA asks and the Premier says, 'How high do I need to jump?'

That is all well and good, but what about the poor teenager working on the check-out at their local shopping centre? Unbeknownst to them, the union stipend that they are paying—and they were probably shown helpful, informative videos as an encouragement to join the union—how many of them know where that money is really going, and that that money is used for political influence, for donations to the Labor Party, to influence government policy and to have the head of the shoppies union sitting here as Premier of this state?

Let's not muck around anymore. The Premier has well and truly nailed his colours to the mast here. There are no more jazz hands and there is no more saying one thing and doing another that does not actually help business: the union boss has had his day today. That is what is happening here. He may not be in the chamber, but the Premier's fingerprints are all over this.

For my next question, let's look at the make-up of the front bench. We have the Premier, the head of the shoppies, and we work our way down until we get to a minister on the side of the corner: the Minister for Small and Family Business. What is the point of having a Minister for Small and Family Business if they are not even willing to stand up for the small and family business community? If they think it is acceptable to not even discuss this change with the small and family business community, they are a minister in name only.

The reality of this situation is very clear. There may need to be a reshuffle at some stage over the summer so that perhaps that ministry can disappear and the minister for the shoppies union can take their rightful place on the front bench here in the state parliament. That is the level of power and influence this union has within the state Labor Party.

The Premier had a choice here. Peter Malinauskas had a clear choice. He could have made Easter Sunday a public holiday. In fact, the opposition actually thinks that making Easter Sunday a public holiday is a good idea. This is the day across that break when people are at home with their families, there are Easter egg hunts happening around the place and there are people attending church. For those workers who do have to or want to work on public holidays, they should be paid a fair and reasonable amount for that.

But what we do not agree with is a net increase in public holidays in South Australia, increasing the total number that, as it stands, is 11½ public holidays across the year, despite the best efforts of the government in their press release to ensure that they did not mention the part-day public holidays are already here—we conveniently just referred to the full-day public holidays.

In the minister's statements on radio this morning, when discussing Easter he completely failed to put into context that we have more public holidays across the calendar year than New South Wales, than WA, than Tasmania and than most of the states on the mainland. We do support Easter Sunday being a public holiday; we do not support a net increase. If the Premier had bothered to speak to the small and family business community, he would know that too. He would know that they do not support this.

What they do support, funnily enough, was raised in the same consultation process by a number of the organisations. We failed to release some of that detail, of course, despite not being asked the question directly, particularly about Easter Sunday, but being open and alive to the fact that the government could be interested in increasing the numbers, there were submissions that included words to the effect of, 'We don't support any net increase in the number of public holidays in South Australia.'

So not only did we not specifically ask the question around Easter Sunday, not only did we present a one-sided picture of what the current situation is in terms of public holidays, of what the response was to this quasi-consultation that clearly had no interest in eliciting a response that had anything to do with the proposal that is before today, but the minister continued to make the assertion that the Liberals are trying to remove a public holiday when, in fact, we are putting forward a sensible and measured suggestion that, should the government wish to make Easter Sunday a public holiday, they should simply swap the Saturday public holiday that already exists to the Sunday.

We think that suggestion is sensible, and we are not the only ones. In fact, we have gone out and done the uncanny thing of talking to those who represent and participate in the small and family business community. Guess what? They think it is a good idea too. Business SA supports this change, the Australian Industry Group supports the proposal from the opposition, the Australian Hotels Association (SA Branch) supports the proposal, the Wine Industry Association supports the proposal, and the Motor Trade Association supports the proposal.

I would hazard a guess that there would be many others who would support the proposal should we have been given enough time to go out and properly do our job. We have done it to the best of our ability but, my goodness me, I would have an epic bet that there would be many more South Australian small and family businesses who would support the proposal made by the opposition on this bill.

Let's get back to the basics of what is being proposed here because I think it is important to again remember that we are having a net increase of Easter Sunday every year, again with this proposal not being put to anybody in the small or family business community. What does it actually mean broader than the impacts I have talked specifically about on individual potential businesses that are affected, whether that be cafes, NDIS providers, aged-care homes, coffee shops, pubs?

What does that mean is going to be inflicted on some of those businesses? Do they make the decision that it is all too hard across this period now, that they shut up shop across the Easter period in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, in the middle of a crisis in terms of the cost of doing business in South Australia, with electricity prices continuing to go up? Nobody wins—nobody wins if these businesses are closed. The businesses are not running, the economy is not benefiting, those families who own these businesses are not benefiting and, importantly, workers do not have the opportunity to work, should they wish.

Again, I think we also need to highlight the change that was made in the shop trading hours laws that passed through this place, because nobody in that industry can be forced to work on public holidays. That was a change that passed this house with the support of both sides of the chamber. This fallacy that has continued to be put out there, that people can be forced to work on these days, is simply not true.

I could go further and talk about some of the arguments that were posed in terms of bringing South Australia into line with other jurisdictions. I wish it could be said that the Attorney-General had a similar view of bringing the state into line with other jurisdictions when it comes to shop trading hours, but apparently it is only on selective issues that the Attorney sees it as being a sensible idea to bring South Australia into line with other jurisdictions.

But let's not miss the fundamental point here: the Premier, Peter Malinauskas, had a choice. He could have made Easter Sunday a public holiday without inflicting pain on the small and family business community in South Australia, but he chose not to. He could have made Easter Sunday a public holiday without punishing small and family business, but he chose instead to punish them. He chose to push up costs that threaten the viability of those businesses and threaten their ability to open on public holidays.

He chose to add an additional public holiday to the calendar, punishing small and family businesses at a time when we have a cost-of-living crisis, when the cost of doing business is skyrocketing, when his Labor government has already jacked up the return to work levy, government fees and charges, and electricity prices. We are still waiting to see the promised reduction in electricity prices from the Labor Party generally.

This is a move that is simply doing the bidding of the shoppies union, who have put the Premier in the seat he sits in today. That is the sphere of influence that we are talking about. That is the decision that this Premier has made, and it has been done to their detriment, without consultation, with no notice, with what can only be described as a desire to punish small and family businesses right across the state of South Australia.

Those on the opposite side of this chamber who purport to stand up for and to care for small and family businesses in South Australia, who say that they support small and family businesses in South Australia, who stand up when motions come before this house to acknowledge the difficulty, the sweat and the sacrifices that small and family businesses make each and every year to put food on the table, to make ends meet and to put their capital on the line, should hang their heads in shame if this bill passes this parliament.

The Liberal Party has been forced to stand up for them and call out this sham. Again, we support Easter Sunday as a public holiday but doing it in a way that does not punish small and family businesses right across the state of South Australia.

Mr FULBROOK (Playford) (17:09): I rise to speak in support of the Public Holidays Bill. As someone who has worked in retail, this is a bill that I am very happy to support. It is also another policy that the then Labor opposition took the election and it becomes another promise that we are delivering on. When I look back on my seven years working at Stirling Foodland, which then became a Woolworths, I have a lot a very fond memories. Starting at the age of 14, back in 1994, this was my very first job, which took me through high school up until I completed my second degree, in 2001.

It was not until I finished and took what some would suggest to be a standard nine-to-five job that I worked out how much I missed this time. The camaraderie we had in the supermarket was second to none. Sadly, this fantastic shop attracted a lot of attention recently in the news as, unfortunately, it burnt to the ground just a few weeks ago. What took me by surprise was a discussion I had recently with Noah Beckman, the local organiser for the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA). Noah was explaining to me how there was something unique about this shop when reflecting on the special bond the employees had for one another.

I am not sure if the origins of this started back in the old Foodland days and carried through subsequent generations of workers, but I can attest to the closeness we felt for each other that thrived back in the day. When I heard Noah's words, they reminded me about how, over 20 years ago, we all seemed to attend each other's 21st birthdays, made the weekly quiz in the Saturday Advertiser a lunchtime ritual and rallied around other workmates if times ever got challenging. We had something special, and it seems to me that over 20 years later nothing has changed.

I understand Noah's words and how hard it must be for the Stirling crew to be separated from other stores during the rebuild, and I wanted them to know, as a former employee, my thoughts are with them. Being pulled away from your friends, whom you call colleagues, is going to be tough, and I hope that the rebuild can happen quickly so we do not lose a drop of synergy that bounced around the staff and made it a cheery place since the Stone Age.

I hope that I have painted a positive picture of my time in retail. While I look back at it with fondness, I must remind myself that it is always easy to look back with rosy spectacles and forget some of the things that we were indifferent to. It has been over 20 years, and I accept that a lot of change has hit the sector since I moved on, but I cannot forget the relentlessness of the gruelling shifts. In the Foodland days, we stacked shelves at night until the job was done. As a high school student in the nineties, sometimes this would end at 11; other times, we would be pushing that until three in the morning. Obviously, the later we went the harder it was to function at school the following day.

While the change to Woolworths was more regimental, the days could still be long, especially if you were working a double shift, quite often to cover a mate who may not have had time off if their shift could not be covered. Needless to say, a lot of goodwill came from the staff to ensure their friends could take a well-deserved break. Working on a check-out and standing on your feet for a long period, with just a rubber mat to soften the pain, was particularly gruelling. This intensified if the day was busy, usually around a public holiday, when it seemed you could not walk away just to get some movement in your legs, even if it was just for a split second.

Then, there were the special public holidays around Christmas. Although it did not affect me at the time, I remember having a private celebration when the previous Labor government introduced the half day holidays for those working late on Christmas or New Year's Eve. For those unfamiliar, coming from a Polish background the emphasis placed on Christmas Eve seems higher than my friends were used to. They would all flock to the pub for a drink, whereas I would stay home because the celebration meant the world to me and to my family.

It was always heartbreaking to finish up at the supermarket late on Christmas Eve, to come home exhausted and see the rest of my family having already started before me on all the food and celebrations. You could not blame them for tucking in and enjoying themselves, but I always felt I had been robbed of something big when the harsh routine of the system stated that it was just business as usual. So, it was great that a hard-fought win ensured there was some recompense for the sacrifice that retail workers, often young, would receive for missing out on something special. The advent of Saturday trading opened up a whole new can of worms with the potential to feel an even greater degree of loss for those working hard in retail.

I think we all know the inflexibility of what happens when Christmas Day falls on a Sunday. This was seen at its heartless best when the previous Marshall Liberal government refused to close this loophole when it last happened in 2021. For those unaware, and maybe some opposite who simply did not care, this led to workers not receiving public holiday penalty rates when rostered to work away from their friends and family on Christmas Day. For a party that often likes to bestow us with how they are the superior beings of the universe when preaching family values, this was a low.

This bill repeals the Holidays Act 1910 and replaces it with some straightforward rules to regulate public holidays. Importantly, it ensures that Christmas Day is treated as a public holiday regardless of the day that it falls on. It also declares Easter Sunday to be a public holiday, and brings us into line with every other mainland state.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a massive sense of loss when a worker is required to work on days that are special, and maybe even verge on sacred. It is therefore right that as compensation for the loss of this special time a worker receives the appropriate compensation of public holiday penalty rates when working on the day.

I focused on retail workers as it is a story I am familiar with, but there are those in sectors such as the emergency services, health care and hospitality I am sure will also welcome this change, and with this in mind I am sure that I am not alone in feeling that these people deserve their penalty rates.

I feel that many within the business community will also welcome these changes. Crucially, we will be able to align our public holidays with the bulk of the states, therefore the majority of Australians. This will be achieved by aligning South Australia's rules for when additional and substitute public holidays occur with Eastern States.

Most other states no longer discriminate based on whether a public holiday falls on a Saturday or a Sunday, instead during the Christmas period an additional Monday holiday occurs whenever a public holiday falls on a weekend. The positive outcome of this is that most public holidays in South Australia and the Eastern  States will now fall on the same days. For those seeking certainty and simplicity, this change reduces disruption to business and, as a bonus, should promote tourism between states.

Taking into consideration the fluctuations that we have observed with our recent standard calendars, I do not feel that the changes that are before us are excessive or onerous on business. It should not be forgotten that most shops are not allowed to trade on Easter Sunday, so this change is not expected to have a significant effect on business trade.

When also considering the additional and substitute public holidays, it means that, on average, the cost to business will be an additional 1.1 public holidays each year over the next decade. It should be noted that many sectors would not operate on Easter Sunday and its addition as a public holiday will be the only change felt next year.

I have noticed that a school of thought is developing around the quality of hours worked versus overall quality. Businesses are beginning to be open to the thought of a four-day working week, and I have become aware of a number, particularly those in retail, moving to five weeks' annual leave. While the latter is a topic for another day, it is great that there is a realisation developing that employers will get more out of their workers if they have more time to rest up to have a life outside of their job.

What we achieve in this bill should align to this school of thought. While I doubt there will be much research conducted into the benefits of this change, I am sure that employers will see a positive change in their staff because of this welcomed reform. If I harken back to retail, given the exhausting effort put into the pre-Christmas period and the inevitability of what follows on Boxing Day, a bit of extra time off to recoup should also make great economic sense. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to realise that an exhausted worker is an unproductive one.

In finishing up, there are several people out there who need to be acknowledged: firstly, Josh Peak and the staff from the SDA who led the chorus for this welcome change. It is a terrible shame that the then Liberal government ignored the union's calls, and I am very sorry that workers missed out back in 2021.

I would also like to thank the Attorney-General and his team for their efforts and drive to convert an election commitment into something that is close to becoming a reality. While there is a Labor majority in the lower house, this is not the case in the Legislative Council. I would like to pass on my thanks to the members upstairs who supported the passage of this legislation.

Recognising that a great deal of work also goes on at officer level with the various departments and parliamentary counsel, I pass on my thanks to them for playing their role in delivering this win for workers. This is a positive step that will ensure that blatant mistakes of the past are not repeated and, with this in mind, I am happy to commend this bill to the house.

Mr TEAGUE (Heysen) (17:19): I rise to oppose the bill. I have listened carefully to the debate so far and, in particular, the contribution of the member for Colton and just now the member for Playford, who has taken the opportunity to recount some happy days working as an employee of what until recent weeks was the Woolworths store at Stirling, which was destroyed by fire just some few weeks ago.

Actions were necessary to bring that blaze under control, and it was responded to in a very significant way by the local volunteer firefighters, including members of the Stirling CFS brigade, the Aldgate CFS brigade, Bridgewater and Upper Sturt, of which the member for Waite is a member, and the member for Waite and her son at different times over those ensuing hours I know were involved. It was an event that counted as, in the Stirling brigade's words, the most significant fire event the brigade has attended in its history, and that may be compared to those significant disasters, including the Ash Wednesday fires of decades ago—so an extraordinary event, indeed.

It is well to reflect on the camaraderie of those employees. The daughter of my office manager was one of those employees in fact present in the building as the fire commenced and one of those employees evacuating as the fire got going. In reflecting on those early hours, I found myself standing among the firefighters and those other members of the community who, in normal times, would be just coming and going in the supermarket, in the mall and in those shops that were destroyed along the way.

Among them was the owner of that property and, alongside him, those who were then and now every day needing to contemplate how they care for their tenants, how they care for their tenants' employees, how they contemplate what is to be done step by step in terms of the necessary attention to demolition on the one hand and then the subsequent reinvestment in what might be replaced there at Stirling. There can be no doubt: it is an excellent example of the ecosystem of the community centre that such a place provides for employees, for customers, for tenants and for the business owners of those retail shops; and it is a sorely missed place of community gathering while it now sits behind high fences, monitored by security guards, blackened and inactive. It is well to reflect on that as an example of the comings and goings of people, and of the necessary inputs of the energy and resources of people to make sure that such places function and thrive.

It is not lost on anyone in my community that that shopping centre—that property, containing as it does many other tenancies besides the Woolworths supermarket—will require the cooperative energy of all those various stakeholders, including the community's embrace of what ought to follow. I wish all the strength to each of those tenants running the small businesses that they do. I wish all the strength to the owner of the property who is going to now consider the very large amount of reinvestment that is required—indeed, Woolworths and the negotiations and so on that are now going to necessarily follow. It is a clear indication of the real world in which businesses, employees and owners of property all need to function in terms of their interaction with community.

In the context of this debate—which, as the member for Colton has rightly identified, centres essentially on what would be the addition of another designated public holiday to the annual calendar in this state—we focus very much on questions of principle rather than be quick, as we have seen in this very brief public debate, to descend to the parading of, as it were, Labor credentials on the one hand and a readiness to engage in a kind of character assassination based on two opposing sides of an argument.

Let us be clear: the expressions that we have seen in the media over the course of the last day—including from the Attorney-General on radio this morning and as chimed in on by the current secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association, known as the SDA or affectionately, as I understand it, the shoppies—are a kind of ridiculing of the view that has been expressed on this side of the house and articulated by the member for Colton of the notion that, without more, it bears scrutiny to just come along and add an additional public holiday to the annual calendar in South Australia.

Of course it bears scrutiny. Of course, for all those different contributors to what made the Stirling shops such a thriving environment that the community enjoyed, one steps back and looks at that whole environment and says, 'Well, of course they all have an interest in the number of designated public holiday days in the year. We ought to be able to have a mature debate about that.' But instead we have heard in the media the member for Colton essentially being singled out for ridicule by at least those two individuals.

The Attorney-General of another place somehow sought to characterise all of this as some sort of debate centred on how one values Easter, or one's credentials in terms of recognising the significance of Easter—and I might say it was much the same from Josh Peak as well—where what has been proposed is really a sensible approach to the application of public holidays throughout the course of the year in South Australia. So let's at least talk in a mature way about where South Australia sits vis-a-vis the rest of the nation in terms of the number of public holidays we have in any given year.

We have all that before us. We can have that sensible debate. South Australia already—we have the evidence—is sitting there smack bang in the middle of where the nation sits. The different states and territories to varying degrees have their own unique public holidays and so, if one looks at the list in each of the states and territories, one will see a somewhat different list. We see a range of between 10 and 13 public holidays in the year depending on which state we are talking about.

Victoria, for example, is the only state or territory that makes Melbourne Cup Day a public holiday. South Australia, for what might be similarly obvious reasons, is the only state that recognises and makes Adelaide Cup a public holiday. There are reasons by dint of local history, of custom, of religious observance and so on that have led to those dates being recognised in different parts of the country.

The total from one state to the other and each territory is somewhat different but by small degree. Let's have the debate by all means in a mature way about how that has come to be, what that leads to in terms of the overall dynamic in the state and whether or not there is merit in reviewing it. Of course, there are the circumstances of how a public holiday is substituted when it falls on a particular day of the week and so on.

I am thoughtful in this regard, in terms of my appreciation of the proper role of unions in a positive way, of the legacy of Sir John Carrick, who was a towering figure of national politics in the 20th century. It was well known, with his keen interest in particular in education, that he would be quick to recognise the constructive role that unions can play.

But when we see the role of the union applied in such a transactional and, if I might say, in light of the evidence in the media this morning, belligerent way towards the delivery of an outcome, including by the use of highly superficial rhetoric, one is moved then to consider: where does this come from? The member for Colton has spelt it out very well.

A good example of this is spelt out in a piece in InDaily as recently as 24 August this year, where we see the SDA pedigree of the present government just spelt out. The centre of power in terms of the SDA and its deep connection and control over this government is there spelt out. It is just one illustration, but we see there a piece that is recognising the occasion of the commencement of Sonia Romeo in a senior role in the Premier's office.

The piece makes the observation that the Premier himself was a former secretary of that association. Now a former secretary has come to join his office and we have heard the advocacy of Secretary Peak. It is an association that is clearly at the core of power in this government. Given that is the case, it ought to be that there is all the more effort, all the more application and diligence applied by the leadership of that association towards an argument that is based on principle.

I heard the member for Playford refer to an election commitment. If that is the case, let's spell out the principal reason for that being applied because the evidence is, rather, that this is just a drawing on the levers of power and a transaction that is applied through the influence of the SDA. That is on display in terms of the short time that has been afforded to the opposition. I understand only as recently as 23 November, a briefing of substance was provided.

On that occasion, I understand it became clear that in the circumstances of this bill and its subject matter, a subject matter obviously of keen interest to industry, including to all the various component parts that make up, until recent weeks ago, that thriving ecosystem at the Stirling shops—of keen interest to them—but we understand sufficiently transactional was the application of power by the SDA in this case that they were not consulted or properly in terms of this additional public holiday being added to the South Australian calendar. Indeed, we were advised that the SDA, the association I have just been referring to, was the only group to submit a response in terms of any response from industry that was actually speaking up for the addition of this public holiday to the South Australian calendar.

It is in those circumstances, and coming from a point of view admittedly that the opposition is not convinced of the merits of adding an additional public holiday to the calendar, that the opposition says that if we want to be fair dinkum about recognising Easter Sunday, perhaps the most significant day in many South Australian's lives admittedly each year—and it has been said it is an important day of celebration and of gathering—if that is to be a proposal, do not use that to add an additional public holiday to the calendar under cover, as it were, of that Easter Sunday proposition and then go and demonise the likes of the shadow treasurer for articulating what might be done to keep the status quo to recognise Easter Sunday and to go about it in that way according to principle.

I understand that approach and that amendment is supported by the relevant key bodies—the AHA, Business SA, the MTA and the Ai Group. as the member for Colton has articulated. I urge the house that if we are to have a debate, an economic debate, about the merits of public holidays and their number in this state, let's do it according to principle and not by way of the application of belligerence or character assassination.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN (Lee—Treasurer) (17:39): I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this important bill because, while I heed the warning of the member for Heysen that we should not enter into this debate with belligerence—and the house would be aware that I am the last to engage in that sort of behaviour—what I would like to see is that we enter into this debate from a basis of fact and a basis of consistency.

The only real opposition to this notion that we hear articulated from those on the other side is that they are dissatisfied with the level of consultation that occurred. Their proposition is to try to take advantage of the opportunity of this bill to massively decrease wages to South Australian workers for the benefit of South Australian businesses. Most disingenuously, this is done, as the member for Colton says, in the interests of small business. Well, the member for Colton picks and chooses whether he sees fit to stand up for small business. It depends on which day of the week it is, it seems or, in particular, which bill is before the house.

If anyone has a record of failing to consistently stand up for small business, it is the member for Colton and those members opposite. Just remember, if you will, the position that the member for Colton, the member for Heysen and those others who are now on the opposition benches took in the very late stages of the parliamentary year in 2021, when they refused to consider, and then refused to support, a bill that the then Labor opposition sought to ensure that workers who were working on Christmas Day—Christmas Day—got paid penalty rates.

They refused workers the opportunity to be paid penalty rates for working on Christmas Day. That is the view of those opposite. It is not about fairness and it is not about standing up for small business; it is about adherence to core Liberal ideology.

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: If you are going to interject, do it from your place.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Do not wander in here late, to your own debate—

Mr Cowdrey: This is my place, Stephen.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —and call out—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order! The member will be heard in silence.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: If you are going to interject, do it properly.

Mr Cowdrey: I was in my place.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order! the member will be heard in silence.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: No, you weren't; you were walking in the door. You can't even be in here for your own bill.

Mr Cowdrey: Excuse me? It's your bill. You're the one inflicting pain on—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: You are the one handling it on behalf of the opposition, and you are not even here. You are not even here.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

Mr Cowdrey: You are the one inflicting pain on the South Australian businesses. You can do it whichever way you want.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Why on earth are you in this place?

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order! The minister will be heard in silence, and the minister will keep his remarks to the bill.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you, Mr Acting Speaker. The insertion of facts and consistency would be of great benefit to the member for Colton. Let's look at the position that the member for Colton and his colleagues took on shop trading hours. Let's try to strike an arrangement, let's try to—

Mr Cowdrey: You just told us we should be in line with other jurisdictions.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order! The member for Colton is warned. This is your bill.

Mr Cowdrey: It's not my bill; it's—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Are you not the lead speaker for the opposition?

Mr Cowdrey: It's not my bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): You indicated to this house that you are in charge of this bill. Were you not correct?

Mr COWDREY: I am the lead speaker for the opposition. It is the government's bill.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Right. Sit quietly and listen to the minister.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you very much, Mr Acting Speaker, for your protection. Those opposite took a shop trading hours deregulation position: more Coles and Woolworths, fewer independent retailers. Which retailers employ more South Australians per dollar spent on their shelves? It is South Australian independent small retailers, not Coles and Woolies. What do they seek to do? They seek to give a free kick to Coles.

Mr Cowdrey interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Member for Colton, you are warned for the second time.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: They seek to give a free kick to the big end of town, as always. It is Liberal Party writ large: a free kick to the big end of town.

Do you know what this proposition does? This proposition recognises the longstanding and widely held practice of Easter Sunday being an actual legislated public holiday, if not a public holiday in practice, because the truth is the vast majority of small businesses are closed on Easter Sunday as it stands. The vast majority of businesses that choose to trade on weekends are open on Easter Saturday and are paying penalty rates.

What they would like to see is those penalty rates removed from workers who are working on Easter Saturday, and they say, 'Don't worry, they will be getting them on Easter Sunday.' They know, as it stands, the vast majority of businesses do not trade on Easter Sunday. You have been called out for what the Liberal Party inherently believes in and that is minimising workers' wages for the benefit of the big end of town—once again, caught out.

You got called out on land tax, you got called out on shop trading hours and you are being called out now on this. While the vast majority of workers, particularly in retail, are working on Easter Saturday and being paid penalty rates, the member for Colton wants those penalty rates removed from those workers, and he pretends that they will be working on Easter Sunday, and the vast majority of them will not be because the vast majority of outlets are not open on Easter Sunday.

That is what the member for Colton's proposition is all about and he dresses it up with some 'failure to consult', that we should have been out there talking to all those people who are open on Easter Sunday, who are open on Easter Saturday. But that, of course, is just a smoke screen for what the real intention of the member for Colton's proposition is. It is his proposition here to remove the penalty rates from the many, many thousands of workers who are working on Easter Saturday now and pretend that they will be reimbursed if they work on Easter Sunday when, of course, the vast majority of them will not be working on Easter Sunday.

Then we have the contribution, 'But there are all these small independent retailers that are open on Easter Saturday, that are open on Easter Sunday,' whether that is in Rundle Mall, for example, or whether that is in regional areas, where there have been longstanding exceptions for those retailers to be open over the Easter long weekend. Well, where was the support for them when it came to the Shop Trading Hours Bill? Where was the support for them, because what they wanted to see, of course, for example in my electorate, was for Westfield to be open. They wanted Coles and Woolies and David Jones to be open, to the detriment of those small retailers, because that is their proposition: always for the big end of town.

As for this, 'It's all an SDA conspiracy,' well, I can speak with some authority on this because I am not a member of the SDA, but I am proudly a member of the union movement. I am actually a member of the Finance Sector Union. Remember that union, the union representing bank workers? Where do they line up for bank workers? Where are the banks on this? Of course, they trade throughout Easter don't they? They are so generous to their account holders to make themselves unflinchingly available. No, of course, they are closed. They open at 9 o'clock on a normal day—no. Open until five—no. A big friend of the Liberal Party is the banking sector because remember how much the Liberal Party federally tried to protect the banking sector for some overdue scrutiny.

That is what I bring to this debate: proud unionism and a member of a union whose workers have been decimated by the behaviour of overextended market power by a small group of dominant players. That is essentially the proposition that those opposite seek to bring to debates in this place, for example when it comes to shop trading hours. It is minimising the benefits for workers and focusing the benefits on the big end of town. That is what they are focused on. So, please, spare me the crocodile tears about small business, because you, member for Colton, have consistently failed to stand up for them in this place when it has counted.

Your only complaint about this is that we did not consult properly. Well, you have been called out for your proposition. You have been called out to remove the extraordinary amount of penalty rates that would be paid to those workers working on Easter Saturday. You have been called out. We know exactly what you stand for in this place. You are tucked comfortably into the pockets of big business when it comes to these sorts of debates, and to say that you stand up—

Mr Telfer interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order, the member for Flinders! The Treasurer has the call.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: My job in this place is to represent the interests of working families and working people. That is exactly what I do and my record bears it out. You must be confused about what you think the Australian Labor Party stands for. It stands for the interests of those people whose only economic asset is to sell their labour into the market. We stand up for them, and when we see a group of people that comes along—

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —and wants to rip away their penalty rates on Easter Saturday, we call it out, because that is exactly what you want to do. All those thousands of retail workers, all those thousands of hospital workers and all those other low-paid workers who work in all your constituencies are the ones at risk from your proposition.

Mr Telfer: Base politics.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: No, it is not base politics. It is basic principles about what we stand for. Do you stand up for working people? Do you stand up for people who are forced to work on public holidays? Do you stand up for people who deserve penalty rates, or do you not? The proposition here is you do not—you do not stand up for them. You stand up for the interests of big business and you want to see those interests grow in this state to the detriment of small business and to the detriment of workers.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: That is the difference between people like us on this side who are proud of our record—

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: —and people who flip-flop.

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order! The Treasurer has the call.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: That is the difference between people on our side who are very clear and very consistent with what we stand up for and people like all of you on that side who pick and choose what you might say on a bill which may or may not impact small businesses or large businesses to different impacts. As long as it aligns with Liberal Party ideology to do your absolute best for the big end of town, that is where you will be.

Mr Telfer interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order, the member for Flinders! You come into the chamber and immediately start heckling the Treasurer.

Mr Telfer interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): You will keep order, please.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I think the proposition is absolutely simple and, of course, eminently supportable. Why would you not support a public holiday on Easter Sunday? Why would you not support Christmas Day being a public holiday? Why would you insist on those two very basic propositions being purchased at the expense of a huge amount of penalty rates that gets paid to workers who often need it the most on Easter Saturday?

The member for Colton smiles incredulously at this argument, almost as if the penny has only finally dropped—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order, Treasurer! There is a point of order from the member for Colton.

Mr COWDREY: Point of order: I take offence to the comment by the Treasurer. I ask that he apologise.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): The member for Colton has asked that you withdraw and apologise for a reference to him smirking, I believe, Treasurer.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: I said smiling; I did not say smirking.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Smiling; I am sorry.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Nonetheless, Mr Acting Speaker, I more so than most today am aware of the need to stay within standing orders and the conventions of this place. I wholeheartedly withdraw and apologise to the member for Colton.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Thank you.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: It is my last wish that he be offended at all in the course of this debate. I know that—

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): You have withdrawn and apologised. Please continue with your remarks on the bill.

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: Thank you. I know that it is important that we maintain our focus here on exactly what the behaviour of the member for Colton and those opposite would wreak on South Australian workers, and that is a massive reduction in take-home wages, particularly over the week or fortnight involving for them the Easter long weekend.

Let it stand on the record what the member for Colton is seeking to do. He pretends that there is an equivalence of Easter Sunday and Easter Saturday, which, of course, there is not—there is not. While most people, for the purposes of this debate—

Members interjecting:

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): Order!

The Hon. S.C. MULLIGHAN: While most people are already working on Easter Saturday and being paid penalty rates, the member for Colton wants those penalty rates gone, and he pretends that they will be returned to them in the following 24 hours on Easter Sunday when the vast majority of outlets will be closed. How bogus, how bogus and transparent, and transparently motivated the member for Colton's proposition is.

I support the bill. We stand very proud to protect the interests of working South Australians, including those people who are employees and, of course, our record of standing up for those people who employ. We have protected small businesses, or tried to, against the worst ravages of the member for Colton and his land tax reforms, not that we could fully debate them because he supported a guillotine motion so that we could not debate it.

We tried to protect small businesses against the worst ravages of the land tax changes and also their proposition for deregulation of shop trading hours. The member for Colton loves walking both sides of the street. He picks and chooses when he might stand up for small business or not. We know what we stand for, and that is looking after the interests of South Australians.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI (Unley) (17:56): I am pleased that the Treasurer raised transparency because I am going to raise some transparency in talking about some history. In 2004, Christmas was on a Saturday, and Labor was in government, and it was not a public holiday. In 2010, Christmas was on a Saturday, and it was not a public holiday, and Labor was in government. They had 11 years to prepare for the Saturday Christmas Day in 2021. It works in a pattern: it is a six-five, six-11 pattern, so every six years-five years, six years-11 years Christmas Day falls on a Saturday. For the eight years—

Members interjecting:

The ACTING CHAIR (Mr Brown): Order! The member for Unley has the call.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: —that the Treasurer was either a staff member or a member of the previous Labor government, nothing—nothing to fix that. There he goes, leaving the chamber.

The ACTING SPEAKER (Mr Brown): It is disorderly to remark on people leaving or entering the chamber. Please continue your remarks.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: Thank you for reminding me, sir. You can see, Mr Acting Speaker, that there is a need for clarity on this. When did they raise it? From opposition, not at the beginning of 2021, when no hospitality businesses had started taking bookings for their Christmas dinners based on the costing mechanism that they had relied on, based on Saturdays not being a public holiday on a Christmas Day for the 16 years of the previous Labor government and, as a matter of fact, for the entire time that we have had Labor governments and other governments in South Australia. Never before was it raised. It was raised in the final weeks of debate in this chamber in the lead-up to the election after many hotels had already taken bookings for Christmas. That was the argument that we put to not support that at that time as a government.

The fact was that it was purely for political purposes, and we know what those political purposes were. They were so it could help political Labor formulate a populist election policy in the lead-up to the election. It was happening not at the beginning of the year, not at the beginning of 2021, when people would forget in the lead-up to the election. It may very well have fixed the problem, but they would not have had an issue to take to the people of South Australia.

We saw pure politics at that time waiver for 16 years the ability to fix this issue that they are claiming they are fixing today. They wanted the election promise. They wanted to go out there and say to people, 'Who wants an extra public holiday?' Of course, everyone would say yes. Then, after asking the same group of people, 'Who wants to pay for it?' nobody would put their hand up, but that was not their target audience. Their target audience was people who were led to believe that this was some newly established, unjust matter that had just occurred that they were going to fix if they were elected to office.

Sitting suspended from 18:00 to 19:30.

The Hon. D.G. PISONI: I will continue my remarks on the Christmas Public Holidays Bill that we are debating. There were certainly some very fiery remarks from the Treasurer prior to my commencing my contribution before dinner about how profitable the banks are. I am not quite sure how that was relevant, but the last time I did some research on where bank profits go it is interesting that, if you look at industry super funds, the hold on average—about 15 per cent of their stocks—are bank shares. So profit-making banks deliver better superannuation outcomes for many of the workers who are members of those industry super funds.

It always amazes me when I hear people who represent the left of politics complain about profits that companies, who their own super funds invest in, deliver that extra retirement income, that extra security in retirement. Then, of course, there were comments made about the Liberal Party being the party of big business. We are the party of business and, of course, small business is very much a part of our party, but who is the party who does deals with big business? The party who does deals with big business is the Labor Party, the political arm of the trade union movement.

You only need to look at the deals that are done with the shoppies union and Coles, for example. Coles is a big business, and I know industry super funds have shares in Coles. Certainly, the profits that the shoppies union makes from their membership fees do not go into supporting members' super funds; they go into the ALP election campaigns.

We have Sunday penalty rates in the Fair Work Act. If you are employed under the award, you pay a 150 per cent loading for Sunday ordinary award rates but, if you are employed by Coles under an enterprise bargaining agreement that has been signed off by the shoppies union—and do not forget that was a major role of the Premier as the person who would sign off on many of these shoppies union enterprise bargaining agreements—the loading is 95 per cent. The award, 150 per cent, but get the union involved, negotiating for you, and all of a sudden it is down to 95 per cent. So who is it that wants lower wages? It is not the Liberal Party that wants lower wages; it is the Labor Party that wants lower wages.

Why does the Labor Party want lower wages? Because what the modern labour movement is offering to everyday workers is not very appealing, so they have to find somebody else—partners—to sign up their members, and so, of course, they do a deal with Coles and Woolworths and others, whether it is KFC, McDonald's or Hungry Jack's. They all have an extraordinarily large number of young people who are members.

How do they become members? How do they know about the union? Because a deal has been done on the induction nights when the unions get access to 15 year olds and 16 year olds on their first night at work when they are paid that three hours on induction. What happens? They get half an hour when they must sit in front of a union delegate who warns them about the perils of big employers and how they are just a single twig, but if you hold a whole lot of trees together they become a strong branch and they are much harder to break, so that is why you should join a union. I know that experience from my own son. Many, many years ago when he got his first part-time job, he felt he had no choice but to join a union.

Here we have a union that sends many people into this chamber, and the federal chamber and state chambers around Australia, that intimidates 15 year olds into signing an agreement to have union fees deducted from their salaries. Union fees are not quite as important and so there is a threshold you need to earn before you start paying union fees, but you are still a member.

The important thing about being a member of the shoppies union is you actually give those shoppies union delegates—those people who are at the top of that pyramid of power of the shoppies union—more power on the floor of the Labor Party convention. The more members you have, the more votes you direct because there is no individual voting for those members. They are very kind, the shoppies union, as they vote on other people's behalf. The more members you have, the more influence you have in the Labor Party, the more of your mates you get preselected to be members of parliament.

Not only do we see that the shoppies union enterprise bargaining agreement deals pay less than the award, particularly on penalty rates on Sundays but we also saw at least two occasions when the Fair Work Commission has ruled shoppies union enterprise bargaining agreements as unlawful because they reduced the pay to their members. On 30 April 2016, The Age reported on an appeal to the Fair Work Commission that had significant implications for supermarkets and their employees:

It's the greatest mismatch since Darryl Kerrigan in The Castle took on city hall to keep the family home…and won.

The story goes on to say:

This time, a Brisbane trolley collector and a data-crunching unionist have taken on one of Australia's most powerful employers and influential unions in a landmark legal case. Already, the challenge to the Coles workplace deal has won significant concessions, including higher penalty rates for tens of thousands of casual workers and higher junior pay rates.

What was that union? The shoppies union, the SDA, the very union whose president or secretary (I am not quite sure of the term they use to describe their highest member of office, other than 'comrade') was angry at these so-called employers who were trying to reduce the wages of hardworking South Australians. However, here not only do we have evidence in the Fair Work Act of a difference between an award salary and that of a so-called negotiated rate by the enterprise bargaining agreement that was pulled together by the shoppies union but we also see that there have been challenges to those agreements.

They have been found to have substance and the Fair Work Commission has ruled that they were, in fact, illegal. I just wonder how many of those illegal deals Peter Malinauskas was involved in when he was the head of the shoppies union here in South Australia. Do not forget, these are deals that are national, so they affect every shop worker in those areas.

I just get a little bit sick of the violin playing by those opposite who claim ground in who they support and the reasons why, when we know that that is not the case. The outcome is not higher wages for workers, it is actually lower wages for workers, particularly when it comes to penalty rates. It is not just Sundays when the penalty rates are much lower, on Saturdays they are much lower as well. On Saturday, the penalty rate all day is 125 per cent in the award. On a Saturday, for the shoppies union it is a 25 per cent penalty—a massive difference in those hourly rates.

Of course, the workers who tend to work on those Saturdays and Sundays tend to be the younger casual staff. It is purely exploitation and the only winners are those on the top of the pyramid in the shoppies union who have the power to push their friends and associates up the pointy end of that pyramid into a seat in parliament or some other cushy job that is handed out by a Labor government or a union within the system.

Consequently, our opposition to the way in which the bill was consulted, particularly when it comes to the additional public holiday, that being argued by the Labor Party, we think there should be an exchange rather than an additional public holiday is ripping off workers is a hollow claim because I have presented you with the evidence here that it is the Labor Party and it has reduced the wages through enterprise bargaining agreements, particularly penalty rates, for workers right across the country.

Another thing I found interesting in this particular bill was the language used to describe certain days. Apparently, there is a public holiday on 1 January. I wonder what 1 January is? It is New Year's Day. Why do we not call it New Year's Day? Why is there a public holiday on 26 January? I do not even remember. It is 26 January Day today, it is a public holiday. No, it is Australia Day. Why do we not call it Australia Day? The second Monday in March? Is that not the Adelaide Cup? It goes on to 25 April. That is ANZAC Day. Fancy not using the name ANZAC Day. The second Monday in June. I think that is the monarch's birthday?

You have the first Monday in October. This is a Labor favourite—Labour Day—the first Monday in October. It is not described as Labour Day. Surely that is a celebration of the old union movement, the union movement that used to help people rather than rip them off. Now something happened on 25 December. That is right, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day on 26 December. The date is here, 26 December, it does not say Boxing Day, but it refers to Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday.

I am trying to work out why they did not make a reference to the Gregorian calendar and insert a mathematical equation so we could work out when Easter was so you did not have to say 'Easter' on those particular days. It is an extraordinary piece of legislation. Of course, as Australia Day changes, we will be back in here again amending the act because it does not talk about Australia Day, it actually talks about 26 January.

As to when claims were made about other states having a public holiday on Easter Sunday, I do not know if anyone has ever been in Canberra over Easter and has wanted to go out on Easter Sunday for a meal, but you would be pretty lucky to find anything open. They are certainly not open on that day. They might have penalty rates on that particular day, but we certainly do not see businesses open, certainly not in the area of the hospitality sector.

The AHA was right in their concerns about the lack of consultation on this. It is all very well for the shoppies union to say, 'They can charge a surcharge to their customers,' but we are in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. It just shows you how out of touch some members are who participate in this economy, who think that charging a surcharge is a good idea. I do not think charging a surcharge is a good idea.

As a matter of fact, I am sure I have heard people in unions representing workers complaining about surcharges being charged for credit card transactions, or surcharges being charged for other banking transactions, but all of a sudden we have the union and obviously this government advocating that surcharges be added to restaurant and fast-food transactions on public holidays and on Easter, which, under this bill, adds an additional public holiday here in South Australia.

This is on top of the new public holidays that have been added—the half-day public holidays from 7pm to midnight on New Year's Eve and on Christmas Eve—which is another significant cost to patrons and small businesses in South Australia.

A lot of people enjoy working on those days as part of their social life. I know that a lot of people who work in the evenings in the hospitality industry do so because it is a way of earning money while having a good time. I did that when I started my business, and when I was doing my apprenticeship I worked in hotels at night-time, and it was great to have a social life and an additional pay packet as well. If businesses are not opening because of the additional cost of providing those services, then that is an opportunity that is being missed by people who would be keen to work those extra hours and expand their social life. Thank you very much, Acting Speaker, for allowing me to continue my remarks.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. A. Koutsantonis.

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