This is a poor look for the government:
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has hit back at Bill Shorten after he and the Australian Council of Trade Unions used International Women’s day to pressure the government to “stop the cuts” to penalty rates.
Attending a women’s day forum in Melbourne with Anne Summers and ACTU president Ged Kearney, the Opposition Leader said cuts to Sunday and public holiday penalty rates would particularly affect women and declared the government was placing the gender pay gap “further under threat”.
But Senator Cash, who is also Minister for Women, told The Australian: “Bill Shorten will do anything and say anything in pursuit of his political agenda.”
The government is pointing to a number of findings by the Fair Work Commission that reject the notion that cuts to penalty rates in hospitality will disproportionately affect women.
“To make good the proposition advanced, it would have to be shown that more female hospitality workers usually work on Sundays, than males,” the commission states.
“But no data has been presented which shows the number of hospitality workers who usually work on Sundays, by gender. Further, the available data does not appear to support the proposition advanced.”
It’s true that the ABS does not split sectors by gender so we do not know for certain, even if hospitality and retail are fairly obviously female dominated occupations.
But more to the point, Accommodation & Food Services and Retail Trade already suffer from the highest underemployment in the nation:
Wages growth in Accommodation & Food Services has been the lowest of all sectors over the past 12 years, whereas retail trade has also experienced some of the lowest wages growth:
And this comes on top of record low earnings growth across the broader economy:
Thus, the FWC’s decision will adversely affect workers male and female in sectors already containing Australia’s most vulnerable and poorly paid workers.
Rolling out Specufestor Cash to kick workers in the guts when she is fresh from failing to declare her latest investment property is pretty bloody stupid.
