Jaunty minister makes a clean sweep to cut costs | Herald Sun

Jaunty minister makes a clean sweep to cut costs |
Herald Sun



THE FACE OF DECEIT OF A MINISTER WITHOUT HONOUR.

Jaunty minister makes a clean sweep to cut costs

• 
  
  James Campbell
  
• 
  
  
  Herald Sun
  
  
• 
  July 02, 2014
  9:02PM
  

Employment Minister Eric Abetz.

WHATEVER you might think about Employment Minister Eric Abetz, you have to respect the lengths he will go to avoid losing.

Last week the feisty Tasmanian was facing defeat in his plan to cut
nearly $5 from the minimum hourly rate that can be paid to Commonwealth
cleaners.

The cleaning services guidelines, introduced by the
previous Labor government, made it compulsory for anyone who wants a
contract to clean a government office to pay their workers above-award
wages.

Getting rid of them was an election promise from the then
Abbott Opposition and victory on this front would be particularly sweet
as the minister who brought them in was Bill Shorten, now Opposition
Leader. But last week, with days to go until the swearing in of the Star
Wars bar Senate — when all bets are off — Labor and the Greens
successfully moved an amendment to the Government’s Public Governance,
Performance and Accountability Bill, which would have kept the rules in
place.




If the Government accepted the amendment, it would be handing Labor a
victory; if it rejected them, there was a good chance the Bill would be
killed.

But Labor and the Greens were not counting on the Abetz
cunning. The Employment Minister accepted the Labor/Greens amendment but
before it could come into effect he revoked the regulations. The effect
was to make Labor’s amendments a dead letter.

The consequences of
his victory for the people who clean Commonwealth offices is that from
now on instead of having to pay them $22.02 an hour, their bosses will
only have to pay them the award of $17.49.

Arithmetic has never
been my long suit but I calculate someone working a 38-hour week on
$17.49 will make $664.62 a week before tax — $34,560 a year — while
someone on $22.02 an hour will make $836.76 a week or $43,511.52 a year.
In other words the outcome of Abetz’s clever move will be to take
$172.14 a week or $8951.28 a year off some of the poorest workers in the
country.

The Government argues no one presently covered by
Labor’s rules will actually have their pay cut as the current contracts
are still in place. But the fact is that last week if you wanted to get a
government cleaning contract you had to pay your workers 22 bucks an
hour; this week you only have to pay them $17.

The Government also
argues that Shorten’s rules only cover 20 or more offices anyway
because they only came into force as contracts came up for renewal.
True, but irrelevant. Had the rules stayed in place they would have
eventually rolled out across all government contracts. You could also
say, in favour of Abetz’s position, there is no reason why government
cleaners ought to be guaranteed $5 an hour more than cleaners in the
private sector.

What fascinates me about this whole episode,
however, is what it says about the psychology of a man who would go to
so much trouble to cut the pay of the people who clean his toilet. In my
observation most Australians who work in offices often have a fairly
awkward relationship with the people who empty their rubbish (I speak as
someone who as a student worked as a cleaner). Having enjoyed his
victory over Labor and the Greens, one wonders what sort of relationship
the senator now has with the men and women who empty his parliamentary
and electorate office bins and clean the ministerial lavatories. Does he
greet them jauntily? Or does he avert their eye?

JAMES CAMPBELL IS STATE POLITICAL EDITOR


Originally published as Jaunty minister makes clean sweep to cut costs