18 October, 2026
The Hon. R.A. SIMMS (16:10): As my parliamentary colleague has identified, the bill before us today, the Statutes Amendment (Industrial Relations Portfolio) Bill, makes two amendments. The first is to the Explosives Act 2024 to enable further consultation between SafeWork SA and the industry, which the Greens support. The second, however, is a change to the Public Holidays Act 2023 to address what the government says is a potential unintended loophole under the now abolished Holidays Act 1910, and this is, of course, where the Greens have some concerns.
There are currently proceedings, I understand, in the Federal Court, brought by Shine Lawyers in collaboration with the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union, asserting that prior to the abolition of that act Sundays were legislated as public holidays and that several major employers, including Big W, Woolworths and McDonald's, breached enterprise agreements and modern awards and contravened sections of the Fair Work Act 2009 by failing to provide workers with public holiday entitlements for work performed on Sundays.
I understand that this bill would prevent some of the lowest paid workers in South Australia from pursuing their claim for compensation from some of the largest and most profitable retail employers in the country. It is always alarming to me when we see the Labor Party cosying up to the big end of town, to Woolies, to Maccas, to Big W, to support their interests at the expense of ordinary workers, and that is what we are seeing the Labor government doing today.
It is not surprising, of course, that they are aided and abetted in that project by the Liberal Party. It is hardly a surprise, but it is disappointing nonetheless. The government will say that this law was never interpreted to have the effect now claimed, but if this was the result of an error or an oversight then it was one which no government saw fit to address until workers and their union went to the Federal Court and asked to be paid fairly.
The question of what the law required and whether these major companies complied with it is exactly the sort of question our court exists to answer. If the employers are indeed right, if their reading of the act is correct, then they will win, but what this bill does is guarantee an outcome in favour of the defendants by quashing the proceedings entirely.
Let's be clear: these are not small businesses without access to advice, and these are not small businesses without very deep pockets. They are some of the biggest corporations in the nation, with payroll systems, employee relations departments, and standing legal counsel. If they were aware that this was a risk, if they were aware that underpayment was occurring and they chose to ignore it, then they must deal with the consequences of their judgement. It is not up to the state government to step in and clean things up or to act as a protection racket for these big businesses.
The liability of those corporations is large because the underpayment was large and because it went on, allegedly, for four years across tens of thousands of shifts. The scale of that alleged wrongdoing is not a reason to excuse it. The government and this parliament should not be taking sides in a live dispute, nor should it create a precedent that sufficiently large wage claims can simply be papered over with a bespoke piece of legislation.
If that is the case, then there is a risk that big companies accused of skirting the law and ripping off their workers will take to lobbying the government to let them off the hook for the consequences. As Craig Allsopp, Shine Lawyers head of class actions, said of the legal proceedings and this bill:
This is not about us going after small businesses, or mum and dad operations, this is about the State Government trying to protect big business which should be doing better by their staff and paying them what we allege they are rightfully owed…
We are talking today about workers who turned up on Sundays, who stacked shelves, who worked at tills and worked over fryers. Whether they were paid appropriately and whether they were paid their entitlements should be a matter for the court to decide. It should not be a matter for this parliament to legislate after the event, and it is really disappointing that once again we are seeing the Malinauskas government siding with the big end of town, siding with your Woolworths, siding with your Maccas over ordinary workers, serving as a protection racket for big corporations, working with the Liberals to dud workers of their entitlements. The Greens will not be a party to that.