Cut weekend penalties and create more jobs: Abbott

Tony Abbott is pressuring the Fair Work Commission to cut weekend pay rates to help jobs and the economy.

Tony Abbott is pressuring the Fair Work Commission to cut weekend pay rates to help jobs and the economy, saying industries such as hospitality were doing it tough because of penalties.

Echoing employer groups that are lobbying the commission for cuts to premium pay rates at weekends, the Prime Minister made a strong case for cutting penalties, claiming the cost of employing staff at weekends was prohibitive in parts of Australia.

“Let’s hope the Fair Work Commission is alert to the need to maximise employment and maximise economic activity,” he said. Lower penalty rates might “help boost employment (and) help ­create a more dynamic economy’’.

His comments on Melbourne radio came days after the government’s highly cautious response to the Productivity Commission’s draft report on workplace rel­ations, which recommended aligning Saturday and Sunday penalty rates for non-essential industries such as hospitality, cafes, restaurants and entertainment.

The ACTU yesterday issued an unlikely challenge to Employment Minister Eric Abetz to protect penalty rates using Fair Work powers “in the public interest”.

Mr Abbott said “there are parts of our country where it’s very hard to find anything open on a Sunday now’’.

“We want to maximise jobs, we want to maximise productivity and plainly if a business is closed on Sunday, there are no jobs; if a town is shut down on Sunday, there is no economic activity there,” he said.