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GIVING the business sector freedom to grow while protecting workers’ rights is a delicate high-wire act for governments.
But if the experience of many young workers in Wagga is any guide, the federal government could be about to lose its balance.
The Productivity Commission has ignited a ferocious debate this week by raising the spectre of slashing Sunday penalty rates.
Predictably, both sides are waiting for the sky to fall in.
The business sector – particularly in hospitality – claims Sunday rates are a millstone around its neck and threaten the viability of hundreds of businesses.
The unions claim scrapping Sunday penalty rates could drive thousands of Australia’s most vulnerable workers below the poverty line.
Unions and business lobby groups are often both as disingenuous as each other.
One thing isn’t in question, though. Junking Sunday penalty rates would be political poison for the Abbott government.
Workchoices almost single-handedly jettisoned John Howard from office in 2007. If this government, already haemorrhaging under the weight of an unpopular leader, adopted the Productivity Commission’s recommendations, they would be signing their own death warrant.
It would play perfectly into the Labor narrative and provide a focal point for attack during the next election campaign.
And there’s another undeniable truth here.
While Sunday penalty rates adversely affect many businesses, those business owners at least have the option of shutting their doors.
Workers on minimum wage don’t have the same luxury.
It may be true the world has changed and we are now confronted by a life rotating around a 24-hour working day, and a seven-day working week.
But the workers providing these services lose balance.
They lose the rhythm of their lives.
Contact with partners and children is diminished as family members find themselves living in different time zones.
Businesses should be penalised for rostering workers outside the hours of family life – penalised by paying penalty rates.