Scott Morrison’s penalty rate cuts will leave low paid Australian workers in retail, hospitality, fast food, restaurant and pharmacy losing as much as $370 out of their pay packet this Easter.

In the ten day period from Good Friday onwards, Australian workers who rely on penalty rates will have their pay packets cut by up to the following amounts:
 
Fast Food: $218.22
Hospitality: $281.78
Retail: $276.55
Pharmacy: $369.41
Restaurant: $225.40
  
When everything is going up except people’s wages, the last thing that workers need is another cut to their take-home pay packet.
 
Unfortunately, this is only the beginning.
 
If Scott Morrison and the Liberals are re-elected, even bigger cuts to Sunday penalty rates will be inflicted on 1 July 2019 and 1 July 2020.
 
Scott Morrison voted in support of the penalty rate cuts eight times.
 
It says everything you need to know about the Liberals that they’re cutting workers’ wages but giving millionaires an $11,000 a year tax cut.
 
Penalty rates are not a luxury – they help people put food on the table and petrol in the car.  They can be the difference in paying the electricity bill, the private health insurance premiums, the child care costs – all of which keep soaring under this Government.
 
Labor understands how important penalty rates are to working Australians.
 
If elected, we will legislate to reverse the cuts to penalty rates in our first 100 days.
 
And we will change the laws to make sure they can’t be cut for anyone again.  
 
Only Labor has a plan to make the economy work for working Australians – we are prioritising better wages, cost-of-living relief and reversing Morrison’s cuts to services Australians rely on – including schools and hospitals.
 
In addition to reversing cuts to penalty rates, Labor will protect Australians from unfair labour hire so that workers doing the same job get the same pay, and we will act on insecure work and unfair working conditions.
 
This election is a choice between Labor’s plan to restore penalty rates, or bigger tax loopholes for the top end of town under the Liberals.  
 
After six years of Liberal cuts and chaos, our united Labor team is ready to deliver a fair go for all Australians.