SARC Report: Youth wages, schools head Labor’s hit list

The Labor majority of the all-party Parliamentary Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC) has proposed that the payment of youth wages in Victoria be outlawed under Victorian law.

Instead, employers could only pay different wages to younger workers based on an individual assessment of their training and experience.
This move puts Victorian Labor at odds with Federal Labor’s workplace relations policy. If implemented, it would put Victorian employers at risk of being sued and ordered to pay compensation for complying with Federal workplace laws, and it would cost jobs for younger Victorian workers, because it would be more difficult and expensive for employers to hire young people.

Today’s SARC report on Exceptions and Exemptions to the Equal Opportunity Act 1995 also proposes that schools could be liable to discrimination claims over school student behaviour rules, if a student claims the rule affects them more than other students due to a protected attribute such as sex, religion, race or political beliefs. For example, a student may claim it is contrary to his or her political beliefs to be required to stand at school assembly for the singing of the national anthem.

Other proposed new restrictions include:
– making it harder for employers to use staff of only one sex in sensitive roles, eg female attendants for female change rooms, or male cleaners to clean male toilets;
– limiting the ability of employers to refuse to employ people with criminal convictions; and
– preventing boutique hotels and bed and breakfast operators from excluding children.

“These recommendations show that Labor’s obsession with their Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act has put them completely out of touch with the real world,” Shadow Attorney-General Robert Clark said.

“Many of their recommendations threaten unclear, ill-considered and costly restrictions that will needlessly interfere with many aspects of Victorians’ everyday lives.

“However, it is welcome that even the Labor members of SARC have not supported the Attorney-General’s proposal that single-sex clubs should be banned unless they can persuade VCAT to give them an exemption, nor his proposed “inherent requirement” restriction on staffing decisions by faith-based schools and other organisations,” Mr Clark said.