Thursday, 6 February 2025

Retail worker penalty rates

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (10:12): Coles and Woolworths want to scrap the penalty rates of their retail workers at a time when Victorians and Australians are working their hardest to just get by, and we will not let them. Woolworths, Coles, Kmart and Costco are teaming up to scrap the penalty rates for some retail workers and their rest time allowances when they are trying to do their very best to support themselves and their families. They are coming after the wages of workers when profits are sky-high. Just last year Coles wound up with a $1.1 billion profit after tax, and Woolworths took home $1.7 billion in the last financial year. As the Premier has rightly called out, these workers got us through the pandemic. They supported us during a cost-of-living crisis, and this is not the time to be waging war on these essential workers.

These large corporations – Woolworths recently got a red card for underpaying workers at the Fair Work Ombudsman review that saw a $500 million payout. If these companies are allowed to get away with this, who knows where this ends? And it will continue into the future. We have to stand up and say enough is enough. The productivity gains that have been made have been made on the back of these incredible retail workers and the people that they support. They are in every part of our community trying to make ends meet. Whether it is supporting families, whether it is trying to get through TAFE or uni, they work their absolute guts out. They know that a Labor government will have their back and their Premier Jacinta Allan will do all that she can to support them into the future.