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

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Brooke van Velden: Workplace Relations Minister on the Government's changes to the Holidays Act · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Major shake up coming to how your leave is calculated.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: The workplace Relations Minister Brook van Velden says the Broken
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Holidays actor is going being scrapped replaced with a more
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  Speaker 2: streamlined system. One of the big changes part time staff
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  Speaker 2: will no longer get a flat minimum sick leave entitlement.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Entitlement's moving to a pro rata basis. Brook van Velden
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  Speaker 2: with me now, Minister, good evening, Good evening, Ryan. Why
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  Speaker 2: a pro rata system? Why that rather than everyone just
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  Speaker 2: getting the same.
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  Speaker 3: Well, because this is about fairness across the system. You know,
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  Speaker 3: there are a lot of businesses that have seriously struggled
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  Speaker 3: with the labour's changes to sickly when everyone went to
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  Speaker 3: ten days, no matter how many hours they worked. And
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  Speaker 3: what I've been hearing loudly from the business community is
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  Speaker 3: they want it to be proportionate to the number of
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  Speaker 3: hours that people actually work. And I'll just give you
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  Speaker 3: an example of how that works out. You know, if
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  Speaker 3: you've got someone who works full time and they've got
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  Speaker 3: the flu for the week, they're going to need five
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  Speaker 3: days sick leave for that to recover. However, if that
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  Speaker 3: worker is only working one day a week, they don't
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  Speaker 3: need five days sick leave to recover. They only need
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  Speaker 3: the one day because they were only expecting to work
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  Speaker 3: one day out of that five. So this is actually
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  Speaker 3: proportionate for the hours worked and it's much fairer for business.
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  Speaker 2: Thanks sad to me. What about the minimum sickly But
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  Speaker 2: if you're a part time worker, you don't get a
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  Speaker 2: minimum sickly entitlement anymore. Why no minimum?
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  Speaker 3: Well, the way that we're wanting it to work is
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  Speaker 3: based on this basic principle. People will earn leave for
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  Speaker 3: the hours that they actually work. That will be across
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  Speaker 3: annual leave and sick leave. So from the first day
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  Speaker 3: of work, everyone will earn for the hours that they
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  Speaker 3: actually do. This means for a full time employee, the
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  Speaker 3: status quo will still will remain. Most people won't notice
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  Speaker 3: any difference other than the calculations behind the scene. So
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  Speaker 3: a full time employee will earn from day one rather
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  Speaker 3: than being entitled to leave after twelve months of employment,
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  Speaker 3: but they'll get still the equivalent of four weeks. The
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  Speaker 3: same for sick leave. If they've done that full year
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  Speaker 3: at a full time rate, they'll still get ten days
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  Speaker 3: of sick leave. However, for someone who's working fewer hours,
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  Speaker 3: they won't be entitled to the ten days sick leave,
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  Speaker 3: but it will be based on how many hours did
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  Speaker 3: you actually work. And if you look at that from
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  Speaker 3: the annual leave side, that means that you get the
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  Speaker 3: same proportion of annual leavers. This is fair.
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  Speaker 2: Who gets? Does anyone miss out or lose out more
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  Speaker 2: than others? I mean, do employers benefit here or employees
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  Speaker 2: more or is it pretty much even stevens across the
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  Speaker 2: board or you don't know.
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  Speaker 3: Well, the way it will work across the overall economy
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  Speaker 3: is it should be cross neutral. But there have been
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  Speaker 3: trade offs that do need to be made. Not possible
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  Speaker 3: for you are and what you.
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  Speaker 2: Are, all that kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
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  Speaker 2: What about labor? But I think the big problem here
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  Speaker 2: is labour going to agree to what you have proposed,
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  Speaker 2: because if they get in interf it out, we are
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  Speaker 2: back to square one.
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  Speaker 3: I certainly hope that that's not going to happen because
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  Speaker 3: what I've tried to do this whole way through is
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  Speaker 3: not try and be ideological I've been very pragmatic about
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  Speaker 3: the trade offs. There will be some employees who do benefit,
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  Speaker 3: and there will be some employers who benefit as well.
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  Speaker 3: It'll be based on all of those individual circumstances. But
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  Speaker 3: my overall aim here is to create a law that
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  Speaker 3: would be enduring, because we know the worst thing for
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  Speaker 3: business is when they don't have stability or know that
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  Speaker 3: it's going to be a political football that goes back
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  Speaker 3: and forth. So instead of looking at this and saying
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  Speaker 3: all employers win on every single part, I've tried to
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  Speaker 3: make as many pragmatic calls as possible about employer and
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  Speaker 3: employer trade offs to ensure that this bill, once it's
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  Speaker 3: an act, will endure for decades to come.
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  Speaker 2: All right, Minister, appreciate your time, Brook van Valden, Workplace
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  Speaker 2: Relations Minister.
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