Page 3139 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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am very pleased to be able to speak on Ms Berry’s motion today because protecting workers will always be at the heart of what the Australian Labor Party is about. Ms Berry has already canvassed this morning why the Fair Work Amendment Bill is an egregious attack on workers’ rights. I would like to the opportunity this afternoon just to make a few additional points on why these rights are important for economic prosperity.
Keeping people in work and ensuring that their working conditions are fair are vital for the long-term growth of an economy. As this side of the chamber has noted on many occasions in this place, keeping people in work helps to alleviate pressure on community services, on charities and, of course, on the government budget. Further, a strong employment base helps to create a vibrant city. More people in work means more economic activity, more people spending in our local businesses and greater utilisation of services, and, of course, all of our service and hospitality economy benefits from more people being in work.
Joblessness imposes a high social cost on the individual and their sense of self worth, and on their family and, importantly, leads to a loss of connection to the community. What is more, fair working conditions are essential to ensure that workers are able to participate fully in our society by receiving fair rates of pay to enable a decent standard of living and by ensuring that there are adequate safeguards in place in order to enjoy the benefits of being part of a society. And that is everything from being able to pick up your kids after school to participating in community events and activities. By ensuring that workers have fair rights and conditions we are ensuring that our human capital is put to best use. Do we really want a society where there are considerable social and economic costs imposed from people not having fair working conditions or a reasonable work-life balance?
One of the best ways to support workers is, of course, through the encouragement of sustained job growth in order to ensure that as many people as possible are able to enjoy the dignity of employment. The Gallagher government is committed to keeping Canberrans in work and boosting the number of jobs being created in the territory. We have a very strong track record of supporting jobs, and I would like to spend some time now outlining how the territory government is helping the private sector to grow and create jobs.
In 2012 I issued the business development strategy for the ACT that had three key strategic imperatives: fostering the right business environment, supporting investment and accelerating innovation. The range of policies that have been implemented to foster the right business environment include implementing a local procurement policy which gives local and regional small and medium sized enterprises a favourable weighting when bidding for ACT government contracts; raising the payroll tax threshold to $1.85 million, which ensures that the territory has Australia’s most competitive payroll tax regime for small and medium businesses; and cutting red tape through the red tape reduction panel, which has overseen a number of initiatives with more to come, including increasing the majority of business licences to a three-year term, reducing the need for businesses to seek annual renewals of their licenses. The Fix My Red Tape website now allows businesses to easily bring issues to the government’s attention. Further, I recently introduced into the Assembly the Red Tape Reduction Legislation Amendment Bill.
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