Wagner Nicky: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Wagner Nicky: Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 National supports the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. Can I say that again for the previous speaker Sue Moroney. National supports the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. We understand that this bill is designed to outline minimum requirements for breaks. It will provide facilities for those women who wish to breastfeed so far as it is reasonable and practicable in the circumstances. 
This is a common-sense bill. That is why we support it and we support it because it reflects what is already happening out there in the workforce. All employers respect and expect to provide rest and meal breaks for their staff. At the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee there was no evidence to suggest that this was a serious problem. It was also suggested during the select committee process that the bill’s provisions are covered elsewhere under health and safety and other industry-specific regulations. I believe that most employers understand the value of looking after employees. They understand the value of providing regular breaks. They understand that value for a multitude of reasons. First of all refreshed and renewed employees do not tend to have work-related accidents. Refreshed and renewed employees tend to have more community within their workplace. Refreshed and renewed employees tend to be more productive. 
I have been an employer for over 25 years myself and I believe that the key to the successful relationship between an employer and employee is flexibility. National is concerned that this bill may be unnecessarily prescriptive and that because of its unnecessarily prescriptive nature it could actually have a negative effect. It could reduce the flexibility of the workplace. If it reduced that flexibility it could make it more difficult for employees and employers to work together. 
Businesses particularly small businesses need to have a stable and a well-trained workforce to be successful. The churn of the workforce is extremely unsettling extremely expensive and extremely unproductive. No employer wants a large churn in employees. The relationship between employer and employee is something to be valued—and I believe it is—and is something to be cherished. Over the years I have employed a large number of people the majority of whom have been women and very often they have been young women with young children. In fact several of my employees have had babies and gone on to have more than one baby while they worked for me. What tended to happen when they became pregnant was that they would come and see me and together we would work through how we were going to make it work. 
Kate Wilkinson 
: Common sense. 
NICKY WAGNER 
: It was absolute common sense. We would talk about the work we had to do over the next year and how we would manage it. We talked about how we could make sure the mother the baby and the business could work together for a good outcome. It worked really well. In fact some of my employees used to plan their pregnancy around our busy times at work because that made it easier for everybody. My philosophy with my employees has always been to say what work has had to be done and to ask how we were going to manage it. We have got through that work with a mixture of options—like working from home particularly when babies have been young and needed breast-feeding often. Perhaps working flexible hours in the office has been an option or employees bringing nannies to the office with them. Often job-sharing with other people who worked in the company has been an option but if we were not able to manage that then we have contracted out part of an employee’s job for the length of time that employee has been away. 
The interesting thing is that one of the best results of this type of arrangement is that employees help each other. I remember that just recently I was at work—working late; it was about 9 o’clock at night—and one of my employees was still there. I said to him: “What on earth are you doing here? It’s 9 o’clock at night; you should be home!”. He said “Well Tania had to go home early because her son is sick.” I said: “Thank you very much. It’s great that you stayed on. I really appreciate that work you’ve got done and Tania will appreciate it too.” He looked me in the eye and said: “Oh well it doesn’t matter. She covered for me when I had to go home to India for my grandma’s funeral.” And that is what it is all about. That is the flexibility in the workforce where employees can help each other and employers can work with them. 
We have the same situation during the school holidays: some people work from home; some people work in the office. They combine their time and make it work. We just have to get through the workload. People do this not just for the good of their health; it is basically because they can see the benefits. They can see the benefits for employers and employees. There is the benefit to the business of the long service of employees. If people stay in a business for a length of time they do not lose the skills they develop. They do not lose the business relationships they build. I think that all of us can identify the situation where we ring up a company but the person answering the call is constantly changing. It is frustrating for the customers of a business if they always have to develop new business relationships. If employees are long-serving the business does not lose its institutional knowledge. That is all retained. It is an enormous waste to a business to lose a female employee just because she is pregnant just because she wants to breast-feed or just because she has other family reasons. 
Employees also benefit from flexibility in the workplace. They benefit because they have a stable job they get to have that long-term stable business relationship with their customers and other workers and they have the satisfaction of being part of a team. 
In conclusion I say once again that National supports the Employment Relations (Breaks and Infant Feeding) Amendment Bill. It is basic common sense and it reflects what is already happening out there in the workforce. Our only concern is that it is very prescriptive and might actually reduce the flexibility of workplaces. We want to make sure that those workplaces can incorporate new ideas can be creative about how they manage their work and can be productive about how they make their workplace arrangements. I will be very interested to see the code of employment practice that is to be approved by the Minister and I can only appeal to the Minister to keep it as flexible as possible. Thank you.