Page 2093 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 8 May 2012
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levies across the two. In addition, however, clerical workers are caught under neither scheme and it is possible to move out of the scheme by changing work classifications while remaining with the same employer.
So, Mr Speaker, there is a lack of clarity for businesses. Once again we see that the government’s usual approach of a one-size-fits-all scheme does not work. Let us add to that the reciprocity provisions. The trouble is that there are no other jurisdictions that carry a security industry portable long service leave scheme. Some Canberra-based businesses employ workers whose work activities are only partly in the ACT or not at all. Once again, there is a lack of clarity about how a Canberra-based business will manage their cross-border obligations under the scheme and even more difficulty for, say, a Queanbeyan-based business who have some employees who work some of the time in the ACT.
Then there is the financial impost on businesses, with the uncertainty created by the fact that no actuarial analysis has been done in order to determine the levy that the employers will have to pay into the scheme. Thus, employers as yet have no idea of the impact of the levy on their budgets, other than the guesstimate that the levy might be similar to that in the community sector of 1.67 per cent of wages.
Perhaps I can help that analysis by running through a few numbers. The minister told us in his presentation speech that the scheme will capture 2½ thousand workers. According to the national peak body of the security industry, the Australian Security Industry Association Ltd, ASIAL, the annual wages bill in the security industry for workers captured under the bill is about $50 million. This equates to an average wage of $20,000 per worker. No doubt this apparently low figure reflects the fact that about 53 per cent of workers in the security industry are casuals, working a second job or working to support their study endeavours. A levy of 1.67 per cent on that amount would yield $835,000 per year to the fund.
The minister also tells us that 20 per cent of the members of United Voice have worked in the security industry for more than five years. This is a curious statistic, given that a worker does not even get pro rata entitlement to long service leave until they have worked for seven years. That aside, ASIAL says that only 12 per cent of workers are members of United Voice anyway. This means that only 75 United Voice members would be ever likely to get an entitlement to long service leave.
ASIAL also says that 53 per cent of all workers are casual and 80 per cent of all workers do not stay long enough in the industry to build up a long service leave entitlement. In the end, there are only a very few workers who actually get a long service leave entitlement. If we gave everyone the benefit of the doubt and rounded things up, the 75 workers may end up at 100 workers. We are talking about 100 people and looking at a long service leave commitment of less than $350,000, against the annual levy intake of what appears to be, on the government’s guesstimate, $835,000, which means this will become quite a profitable little venture for the long service leave board.
But there is more, Mr Speaker. The concept of long service leave is to reward an employee for loyalty of service to an employer. It is unique to Australia and
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