Page 3534 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 25 August 2009
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come the danger that some of the hard-won rights of working men and women may be lost. Particularly vulnerable are those in industries where jobs tend to be project based, where there is significant churn or where workplaces are small and career progression means moving from organisation to organisation.
To date a number of industries have acknowledged these realities and have made provision for workers to take their accruing long service leave entitlements with them when they move from employer to employer within a single industry. The cleaning industry is one and the construction industry is another. The rationale is simple: those who, by the nature of their work, are someone itinerant can count their years of service for a particular industry as a continuum, with each employer paying into a legislated scheme for the duration of the worker’s employment.
As you might imagine, Mr Speaker, the proliferation of dedicated industry-based schemes is not necessarily the best way to go. In fact, the bill being debated today reflects a recognition not just within government but within the relevant industries themselves that an integrated scheme to oversee portable long service leave is the logical way to go. Both the authority that administers the construction industry’s long service scheme and the authority that administers the cleaning industry’s scheme are in favour of a single, integrated authority.
Extensive consultation with all stakeholders has been undertaken in the preparation for the bill that will establish this integrated authority. The process has been informed and enhanced through detailed collaboration with the governing boards of the two authorities that will be subsumed into the new single authority. It has been informed and enhanced by consultation with employer representatives and, of course, detailed and fruitful discussions have been held with each of the relevant unions.
Australia leads the world in the provision of long service leave. It is only fair in a society such as ours, committed to equality and genuine work-life balance, that we ensure as far as possible that working men and women can enjoy the entitlements enjoyed by their neighbours. One of the great advantages of the new authority proposed by this bill is that it is designed to allow the future entry and incorporation of additional industries over time. You can do this because while the day-to-day administrative functions of the former authorities are being amalgamated, the assets of each industry’s fund are quarantined for the use of that industry’s members. Each industry will have the capacity to set its own long service leave levy, taking into consideration the size and performance of its own accumulated assets.
As members would know, the government is currently working on portable long service leave for both the community sector and the childcare sector, two industries in which workers have historically worked for multiple employers over the course of a career and have paid the price when it comes to the accrual of long service leave entitlements. It is relevant in this context that the majority of workers in both these industries happen to be women, who have traditionally confronted additional barriers to the accrual of long service leave entitlements because of the fractured nature of their work histories.
The bill before the Assembly today is an important one. In the short term, it will allow for considerable administrative efficiencies for two of this town’s important industries.
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