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Just Plain Mean and Tricky
Date: 18 September 2001
Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations Arch Bevis said that contradictory announcements today by the Prime Minister John Howard and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott was proof the Government was making up its employee entitlements policy on the run.
"It is clear that John Howard has no plan to fix this problem and is simply applying bandaids to his discredited scheme.
"Regardless of whether we believe John Howard on Friday when he said that the scheme would have no caps other than redundancy or Tony Abbott when he says;
In terms of the general scheme, we may have to put some caps on
it is clear that this back flip is an admission that the current scheme is totally inadequate.
"It has taken two years, a string of company collapses and finally the collapse of Ansett - which has left about 16,000 workers without a secure future - for the Prime Minister to admit what Labor has been saying for ages: the Government's employee entitlements support scheme is totally inadequate.
"Despite the best efforts of the self-confessed L Plate Minister to confuse everyone today, it is clear that the proposed scheme fails the critical test. It will not provide 100 per cent of entitlements and leaves Australian taxpayers to pick up the bill for corporate mismanagement.
"The issue of loss of employee entitlements in cases of company insolvency requires a comprehensive national solution.
"Only Labor has a national scheme where all employees are covered for their unpaid wages, accrued annual leave, long service leave, termination and redundancy arrangements and superannuation payments.
"Labor's plan is based on a small contribution of 0.1 per cent of payroll to fund the scheme. Small employers would not even pay that - their employees would be covered directly by the Government.
"Not only has John Howard showed just how out of touch he is, he is actually making it up as he goes along. He had an opportunity to get this right and clearly he still doesn't understand that employees deserve nothing less than a comprehensive national scheme to cover 100 per cent of their legally accrued entitlements.
"The new scheme is nothing more than another attempt by John Howard and Tony Abbott to apply a short term solution to get past the next election," Mr Bevis said.
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