Aussies have shared their experiences with penalty rates in droves on Twitter, outlining exactly how the bonus pay provisions enabled them to, you know, live. Former students have explained how working inopportune hours helped ’em through university in the first place:
When I was 17 I worked for $10/h during my first year of uni for 14 hours every w/end just to pay for bus fares to get to uni.
— Danaella Wivell (@DanaellaWivell) February 23, 2017
@DanaellaWivell when I finally moved up and got a job with penalty rates it meant I could save as well as afford daily travel
— Danaella Wivell (@DanaellaWivell) February 23, 2017
@DanaellaWivell penalty rates are essential, and 17yo me who starved through uni bc it was either bus fares of food won’t forget it.
— Danaella Wivell (@DanaellaWivell) February 23, 2017
Penalty rates got me through uni. That education has served me, and hopefully our economy well. Cuts are a bad decision #penaltyrates
— Brodie Emery (@brodieemery) February 23, 2017
Getting a job at Myer in Hobart & getting penalty rates allowed me to move from the country to Hobart – a move essential to my Uni studies
— Jenny B (@jennyweez) February 23, 2017
For 3 years I worked mainly on weekends while completing an honours year & finishing a law degree. Penalty rates were how this was possible
— Jenny B (@jennyweez) February 23, 2017
As someone who relied on penalty rates as a student and hospitality worker, this horrifies me. #penaltyrates can mean survival! https://t.co/7iVmZc7Zoe
— Emily Hills (@Hillsdog84) February 23, 2017
Others have explained that the extra income penalty rates provide is legitimately indispensible, and that slashing rates will cause seismic shifts in their ways of life:
when i was working customer service job, penalty rates were the only thing keeping me living off the streets
— Banksia Burdak (@Tezamondo) February 23, 2017
#penaltyrates what bs people need to eat, penalty rates is how we make any decent kind of money to live already and government deletes it ????
— C-lo (@Bomdigityfresh1) February 23, 2017
I earned 13k last yr as a cas kitchen worker, That is not much! Now they’re taking my penalty rates 🙁 Expletive this ridiculous Government
— Maximillian Korobacz (@1_clone) February 23, 2017
‘basically what I live off’ -my little sister texting me abt her penalty rates
— Freya New (@freyanewmn) February 23, 2017
@kiwicabelIo okay but without my penalty rates I can’t afford to pay my rent in sydney lol. I get paid shit as it is under hospitality
— rhi (@IWontForgetDemi) February 23, 2017
#auspol #parrakeelia daughter was forced off family benefits with two kids
Did right thing got job now govt attacking her penalty rates— BigAl (@banas51) February 23, 2017
Then, there’s the ideological opposition to the changes. Keen observers of this pro-business shake-up have questioned why Australia feels the need to squeeze some of the nation’s most put-upon workers:
A sustainable system would never have the sentence “we need penalty rates so I can pay rent” – this is a symptom of systemic failure.
— Brendan Molloy ? (@piecritic) February 23, 2017
Cutting penalty rates is a class signal. That some people’s time off is more valuable than others. That some people are not equal in society
— Biggles (@Taco_Lad) February 23, 2017
This cut to penalty rates is literally affecting the most vulnerable people in our society who are contributing to the economy by working.
— Daile Kelleher (@DaileKelleher) February 23, 2017
Penalty rate cuts are punishing people for having a job. These are entry level jobs that are being disadvantaged. $21 per hour jobs.
— Daile Kelleher (@DaileKelleher) February 23, 2017
Cutting penalty rates is giving the message to these workers that we don’t care if you can survive or not.
— Daile Kelleher (@DaileKelleher) February 23, 2017
Goodbye penalty rates. Goodbye equality. Goodbye family life. Goodbye#auspol
— Clive Palmer (@CliveFPalmer) February 23, 2017
Source: Twitter.
Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty.
