Latest / Best of Business / Brooke van Velden: Workplace Relations and Safety Minister on the Government's plan to change the Holidays Act

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Brooke van Velden: Workplace Relations and Safety Minister on the Government's plan to change the Holidays Act · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks B follow
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  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on Iheartradioations.
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  Speaker 2: Genative Trainee on that Gen Taylor's got a nice little
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  Speaker 2: boost from that t Y announcement last week. We're going
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  Speaker 2: to have chat to Milford Ascert Management and then Precinct
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  Speaker 2: Properties on their new purchases. A couple of them to
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  Speaker 2: talk about after half past six at seven pass six
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  Speaker 2: right now now, the Coalition government is going to shake
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  Speaker 2: up the Holidays Act. Two big changes are planned pro
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  Speaker 2: rata sick leave and a switch from an entitlement system
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  Speaker 2: to an a cruel system. There'll be targeted consultation on
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  Speaker 2: a draft of the bill in September. And the minister
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  Speaker 2: behind this is the Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brook
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  Speaker 2: van Valden, who's with us now?
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  Speaker 3: Hey, Brook, Hey, how are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm very well. This sounds really technical? Is that? What
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  Speaker 2: it is? Just a technical change?
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  Speaker 3: Basically the Holidays Act is really technical as a piece
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  Speaker 3: of law, which is why there are so many businesses
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  Speaker 3: who've got it wrong in the past. You know, government
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  Speaker 3: agencies have been falling foul of the law all the
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  Speaker 3: way down to small business and what I'm aiming to
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  Speaker 3: achieve is to simplify the law so that businesses and
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  Speaker 3: workers know what their rights and obligations are, which is
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  Speaker 3: in the benefit of businesses, so they're not spending so
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  Speaker 3: much time on admin but actually doing work, and it's
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  Speaker 3: in the benefit of workers, so they know what their
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  Speaker 3: obligations are, what they are entitled to, and can make
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  Speaker 3: sure that their bosses are paying them correctly.
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  Speaker 2: Rook what is complicated about it? You work for a company,
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  Speaker 2: you're entitled to four weeks and you're leaving your entitled
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  Speaker 2: to ten days sicklyve what's complicated about that?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you talk to any of the payroll providers or
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  Speaker 3: any small businesses, they'll tell you that it's really complicated
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  Speaker 3: and it's very hard, especially because it looks at what
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  Speaker 3: was really an old school way of working five days
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  Speaker 3: forty hours in a week. It hasn't really adapted to
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  Speaker 3: a modern flexible work environment, which is what we're aiming
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  Speaker 3: to achieve. One of the areas that I've heard a
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  Speaker 3: lot of concern by is that business struggled to adapt
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  Speaker 3: to the last government's increase in the sick leave to
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  Speaker 3: ten days, and I'm trying to bring in a bit
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  Speaker 3: of proportionality there and say, yes, if you've got part
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  Speaker 3: time staff members, is it proportional for all of those
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  Speaker 3: part time workers to also have ten days? And I'll
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  Speaker 3: give you a really good example of how this works.
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  Speaker 3: I had a person who works in a dental practice
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  Speaker 3: reach out to the office. They said, this person who's
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  Speaker 3: a dental hygienis works two days a week for them,
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  Speaker 3: two days a week for another company. They're entitled to
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  Speaker 3: twenty days six leave under the law. That's disproportionate to
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  Speaker 3: what a full time worker would get. So we're making
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  Speaker 3: it easier to understand and comply with for a whole
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  Speaker 3: range of different work environments.
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  Speaker 2: Does that mean brook that if you are that part
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  Speaker 2: time worker at the dentists and you're only working two
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  Speaker 2: days a week, you're not going to get the same
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  Speaker 2: amount of sickly as I get when I work full
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  Speaker 2: time and get ten days.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we're bringing in that proportionality. Is it right that
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  Speaker 3: a person whom I work two part time jobs get
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  Speaker 3: double the sickly of allocation? Those are the types of
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  Speaker 3: questions that I'm hoping to ask in that consultation. So
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  Speaker 3: we're asking that of businesses, workers, legal experts as well
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  Speaker 3: as payroll providers, to make sure that the law is simple,
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  Speaker 3: it's easy to understand. It's clear, businesses know what their
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  Speaker 3: obligations are, workers know what their rights are, and that
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  Speaker 3: we can all get on and as part of a
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  Speaker 3: thriving economy.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, So if we're talking about sickly being proportioned, is
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  Speaker 2: it the same for annual leave?
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  Speaker 3: Well, annually is currently a proportionate, so you might get
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  Speaker 3: four weeks annual leave at the end of twelve months
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  Speaker 3: of continuous employment. We're bringing that back to a cruing
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  Speaker 3: annual leave, which means that you're accrue it over time,
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  Speaker 3: doesn't matter that you've been there for twelve months or not.
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  Speaker 3: But one thing I'd make clear is that doesn't mean
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  Speaker 3: that people would get less annual leave than what they
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  Speaker 3: currently get. That is part of one of those technical
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  Speaker 3: changes that you're talking about.
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  Speaker 2: Brook Listen. I was talking earlier to David Seymour about
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  Speaker 2: the health and safety legislation, which is obviously a terrible
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  Speaker 2: thing inflicted upon this country, and he said, you're taking
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  Speaker 2: a look at it, but he didn't know where you're
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  Speaker 2: at with it. Where are you at with it?
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  Speaker 3: It's possibly because I can't really talk about it yet.
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  Speaker 3: So We've gone through cabinet processes and I'll be making
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  Speaker 3: announcements in due course on where we're landing with that.
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  Speaker 3: But i want to make it very clear to anybody
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  Speaker 3: who's listening that health and safety compliance is one of
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  Speaker 3: my top priorities to get down and work on this term,
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  Speaker 3: not just the Holidays Act, but health and safety as well.
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  Speaker 2: But are you looking at a wholesale change like or
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  Speaker 2: are you just going to tweak.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we'll be asking that question as well, so I'll
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  Speaker 3: be doing an in depth consultation making sure that we're
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  Speaker 3: asking all of the right questions. So I'm not making
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  Speaker 3: tweaks to the overall legislation if that's not needed, but
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  Speaker 3: also not just tweaking regulations if it really is the
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  Speaker 3: law that needs a change. But any large any large
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  Speaker 3: scale announcements still to come on that.
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  Speaker 2: Of me, Hope Brook, thank you for that. Brook van Velden,
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  Speaker 2: Minister for Workplace Relations and Safety. I mean the health
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  Speaker 2: and safety legislation in this country. Jeez, it's written for idiots, right,
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  Speaker 2: it really is. It's written for idiotic, like the dumbest
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  Speaker 2: and drunkest person you know. It's written to keep them
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  Speaker 2: safe and keep them alive. I would argue we shouldn't.
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  Speaker 2: I would argue Darwinism. Just let them go for it.
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  Speaker 2: The rest of us and don't need those rules. We're
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  Speaker 2: keeping ourselves alive.
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