Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter – who *surely* has more important things to be worried about right now – has his knickers in a knot over the Victorian Government’s new casual sick leave scheme.
In case you missed it, Premier Dan Andrews announced a monumental new scheme on Monday that will see casual and insecure workers in “priority industries” receive 5 days of government-funded sick leave per year. Although it’s less than their part-time and fulltime coworkers receive, this is quite literally life-changing for so many people in casual jobs.
“This issue of insecure work, this pandemic, has exposed just how fragile the financial arrangements and employment arrangements of hundreds of thousands of Victorians are,” Andrews said back in August, at the height of the pandemic.
“It’s no good for public health. It’s no good for much at all, actually.”
But of course, Porter has deemed it a “business and employment-killing approach.”
Honestly, he might as well just wear Paris Hilton’s “stop being poor” shirt and call it a day.
Porter said that the government understands “the myriad challenges with our industry relations system highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” but thinks Dan Andrews’ solution “raises a number of major issues.”
You know, issues like making sure we don’t have sick and infectious people working in retail and hospitality jobs, potentially spreading germs further than need be. Or, the *huge* issue of workers being able to actually afford a sick day when they truly need it.
Honestly, I’m glad Porter is standing up for this absolutely abhorrent scheme because *somebody* needs to ensure that the lives of casual employees remain as difficult as humanly possible.
“The central problem with the Victorian proposal is it seems to start with a small, government-funded pilot and intends to finish with what would be a massive tax on Victorian businesses, who would be forced to pay for both a 25% additional loading in wages to compensate for casuals not receiving sick leave and then having to pay for an industry levy to fund sick leave as well,” he said.
“After Victorian businesses have been through their hardest year in the last century, why on earth would you be starting a policy that promises to finish with another big tax on business at precisely the time they can least afford any more economic hits?”
Now, I understand this. The reason casual employees get casual loading is because they don’t receive the same benefits as their permanent counterparts. But we’re not talking about annual leave, or the 10 days of sick leave full-time employees receive. We’re simply talking about an absolute *maximum* of five days paid leave, that will presumably require a sick certificate.
“It must surely be a better approach to let people have greater choice between casual and permanent employment than forcing businesses to pay a tax so that someone can be both a casual employee and get more wages as compensation for not getting sick leave – but then also tax the business to pay for getting sick leave as well,” Porter said.
I don’t entirely disagree with Porter’s point, but to seemingly assert that this is some sort of ploy to rort the system is absolutely ridiculous. Also, it’s truly not as simple as just giving everyone a part-time contract.
For millions of Australians (particularly students, single parents or those with conditions that may prevent them from working full-time), the option to be permanent simply isn’t feasible.
Although it would be great to give everyone permanency, if you’re a student with a constantly-changing uni schedule or a parent who needs flexibility, this isn’t necessarily an option.
As someone who worked in these notoriously casualised industries for the better part of a decade, I was never asking for paid annual leave, a plethora of sick leave or the guaranteed hours of a permanent contract.
But fuck, having just five days per-year that I could’ve called in sick without it jeopardising my ability to pay my rent would’ve been quite literally life-changing.
If the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that nobody (not even casual employees) should be forced to choose between being genuinely sick, and being able to afford to live.
This isn’t about casual workers having their cake and eating it too, it’s about making sure that being able to take a sick day isn’t something that is only reserved for those of us who can afford it.
