Adams Paul: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Adams Paul: Holidays Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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PAUL ADAMS (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future which will be supporting this bill. United Future did not support the original Holidays Bill mainly because we foresaw a lot of the challenges that we are dealing with today. But I give credit to the Hon Paul Swain for seeing some of the issues that are a real challenge to business and industry at the moment and addressing them. I address what Wayne Mapp said by saying that as an employer yes I would rather have this minor tampering now than wait another few years to get the whole issue addressed. 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: That’s not what they say. 
PAUL ADAMS 
: It is what they say. The member is not speaking to the right people. What I believe we are now able to deal with in an employer-employee relationship is genuine sickness because an employer has the ability to ask for a medical certificate from the person who is taking the sick leave. I disagree with Sue Bradford when she says that we are doing this because of a few dishonest employers. I think that for every dishonest employer there are probably 25 dishonest employees when it comes to sick pay. I agree with Peter Brown that employers should be free to agree to a salary that would include days that workers would have to work on public holidays. 
This bill I agree is by no means perfect. There are many areas that need to be addressed. I refer to the motor industry as an example. It is an industry I am involved in. Commissioned sales people sell on a 7-day-a-week basis. They may have a retainer that they are paid of say $10000 per annum but their annual income over a year may be $100000. 
 When it comes to the relevant daily pay for working on a public holiday this becomes a huge cost to those employers yet they still have to pay the same amount of commission to those salespeople for the product that they sell on that particular day whereas the person who takes on that job well knows that the major part of his or her income will be derived from what he or she sells. 
So yes there are certain problems like that. But on the other side of that coin I agree that it should be based on ordinary pay rather than relevant daily pay. Let us have a look at an example where we have a genuine worker who relies on the pay from working on a special day such as a statutory holiday or whatever it may be and is genuinely sick on that day. That person knows that on that particular day he or she would normally get a substantial increase in his or her take-home pay. 
If people are genuinely sick on that day—and I believe that this brings in checks and balances for the employer to be able to check that they are genuinely sick—I personally think it is more than fair that people get that to which they would normally have been entitled. Personally I believe that most good employers respect their staff and especially in the small-business industry they do intend to try to look after them. I have found many times when I have spoken to employers that even when workers have run out of their sick leave entitlement if they have been genuinely sick employers take the well-being of their workers’ wives and families upon themselves many times. I know in many many cases that employers pay sick pay if there is genuine sickness. 
United Future believes that this is a step in the right direction. We are a common-sense party. When we see legislation that is at least stepping in the right direction we will not be so ideological that we will throw the baby out with the bath water. This legislation is heading the legislation back in the right direction and as such United Future is pleased to support it.