CHRISTIAN PORTER CONTINUES TO MISLEAD ON PAY CUTS
Christian Porter is starting 2021 where he left 2020 – misleading Australians by desperately trying to deny his industrial relations proposals could result in pay cuts for hardworking Australians.
Mr Porter is making claims that are 100 per cent wrong – and easily disprovable with a quick glance at his own publicly available transcripts.
In Parliament this week Labor highlighted that a new proposal put forward by retailers to scrap penalty rates for supervisors and managers could leave them more than $10,000 a year worse off.
Mr Porter sought to distance himself from this disgraceful proposal by issuing a statement saying it had nothing to do with the government’s IR changes and was all a matter for the Fair Work Commission.
That was a lie.
What Mr Porter neglected to mention is he was the one who personally instructed the Fair Work Commission to consider these changes.
On December 9 last year he wrote to the Commission asking them to consider scrapping penalty rates for a range of industries.
He did this the same day he announced his IR omnibus bill, which also allows for workers’ pay and conditions to be cut by suspending the Better Off Overall Test.
Here’s a transcript from the Minister’s own website where he confirms he wrote to the commission asking them to consider this issue of so-called loaded rates. As he made clear in the opening lines of that press conference: “I signed that letter and it went off this morning.”
And here’s a transcript where he again confirms he personally commenced this process, paving the way for further penalty rate cuts. He links it directly to his IR agenda and to the IR omnibus bill: https://www.attorneygeneral.gov.au/media/transcripts/media-conference-parliament-house-canberra-9-december-2020
Mr Porter opened this Pandora’s Box. He initiated this process and invited the proposals like the one we’ve seen from retailers.
Retail workers were among the heroes of the pandemic. They put themselves at risk to keep stores open and Australian moving.
But Mr Porter has paved the way for them to be hit with a massive pay cut. This is how Scott Morrison’s government thanks them for their sacrifices.
Here are the facts about this proposal:
* A level 4 retail supervisor who works weekends and overnights could see their annual income reduced from $67,238 to $57,059 – a cut of $10,179.
* A level 8 retail supervisor who works a the same shift pattern could see their annual income reduced from $77,642 to $65,858 – a cut of $11,784.
These calculations can easily be made on the government’s own Fair Pay Calculator.
Mr Porter either knows literally nothing about the industrial relations system or is being deliberately misleading.
Labor will oppose any and every attempt this government makes to cut the pay of hardworking Australians.
WEDNESDAY, 3 FEBRUARY 2021