Page 3828 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 October 2005
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power in 1996. We presume that there has been a complete rewrite of the Workplace Relations Act, although we cannot be sure about that. Maybe the federal government is drafting a completely new bill that will override other pieces of legislation as well. But the federal government has been very clear that no-one is going to get a briefing on this legislation until it is introduced.
Mr Mulcahy is probably the only person in the country that has had that kind of insight into the great minds that are designing this legislation. I think that it is his responsibility to stand up and tell us what those briefings were about because these laws, when introduced, will come into effect straightaway in the ACT. The states may be in a position to pursue legal action and stop the changes taking place straightaway, if they can manage to seek an injunction or pursue action through the High Court, but once this legislation is enacted we will have these laws in operation in the ACT. That is the reality for ACT working people. It is not going to be something that we will have time given to see how it is applied and see how it will work in the workplace. These changes will happen straightaway. If Mr Mulcahy has any advice on what is to be in there, I think all of the ACT community would be interested to know.
Mr Mulcahy runs the line that it is essential that people are fully informed about these changes. We agree. We would love to be fully informed on these changes. I have not been privileged to have the briefings spanning back some months that Mr Mulcahy has had. We can only go on the information that the federal government provides to us. There is not going to be much time to look at the legislation. The legislation is going to come in and then there is going to be a very short period, perhaps two weeks, for the public to look at the legislation and then it will be passed, presumably.
We have to be talking about these laws now, but the only way we can talk about them is by doing so based on what we know from the federal government’s PR campaign. Mrs Porter’s motion today talks about the impact on the public service and the impact on community life. If penalty rates, shift rates, public holidays, and annual leave loadings are all up for grabs and all start being whittled away, life in the community, particularly life in the community of a weekend, is going to be very different for many families.
Mr Mulcahy says that he has been enjoying life over the past few years, that his world has not ended. We are all heartened by that. It is good to know that Mr Mulcahy has a nice life and that he has not been inconvenienced by any of the changes that were introduced in 1996, but many people have. Many people have suffered. Life on the minimum wage is not tremendous in terms of the choices you can make, the flexibilities you have, and the decisions you can take, such as whether a child can go on an excursion as there are other things to plan for.
No longer will there be a living wage case every year. The Fair Pay Commission is to be about the minimum wage. The only commitment we have about the Fair Pay Commission is that it will not reduce the minimum wage that was set earlier this year. When it comes into operation next year, all those people that work on minimum wages will be lucky as it will not cut what they got a year ago. That is going to give a lot of comfort to all of the millions of people that work on the minimum wage! For Mr Mulcahy to stand here and say that his life did not change irreparably when the changes came in is just unbelievable.
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