The National Retail Association (NRA) has condemned the Victorian Government for imposing unnecessary red tape on struggling small retailers as Australia enters its first recession in 30 years.
Last night the Victorian Parliament passed the Wage Theft Bill 2020, despite staunch opposition from the small business community. The Victorian Government pushed ahead with this legislation despite concerns raised that adequate federal legislation already exists to address the issue.
NRA CEO Dominique Lamb said that burdening retailers with unnecessary regulation during the current period of economic turmoil only risks seeing more businesses and jobs hit the wall.
“No business should ever underpay their workers a single cent. Fortunately, there are already robust federal laws in place that provide the Fair Work Ombudsman with powers to investigate and , enforce and penalise wage underpayment and this has been highlighted by several high-profile cases in recent times,” Lamb said.
“The NRA supports the Fair Work Ombudsman doing their job without the need for duplicate state legislation that may not even be constitutional.”
“This legislation comes at a time where the Federal Treasurer has just confirmed that Australia is in its first recession since 1991, and the Prime Minister has declared our current industrial relations system of confusing awards and convoluted enterprise agreements ‘not fit for purpose’. Now is not the time to be loading the threat of prison sentences onto the shoulders of businesses merely because they struggled to make sense of an already-broken system.
“There is no legislative gap to be filled. Any further regulation is just going to burden small business without doing anything to safeguard workers from underpayment.”
“The Victorian Government has sought to play politics at a time of economic catastrophe when instead it should be working with industry to keep everyday Australians in jobs.”