Tax cut does not make up for penalty rate cut: union

Hospitality workers will still be out of pocket even if they receive the full tax cut for low and middle-income workers.

Yesterday,  was the day hundreds of thousands of hospitality workers receive the final penalty rate cut transition, amounting to a total of $2000 in penalty rate pay cuts a year. Meaning that there is definitely no ‘supposed’ boost for these workers in the tax cuts.

Workers arriving for their regular Sunday shift earned less yesterday than they did last weekend for the same work.

Low-to-middle income earners will receive a maximum tax cut of $1080 when they do their tax return.

And the reality is the tax cuts for many low-income workers in hospitality will be even lower (with the full $1080 tax cut only kicking in when workers earn above $48,000).

Jo-anne Schofield, National Secretary of United Voice, the hospitality union said it’s a scandal that some of Australia’s lowest-paid working people are going to earn less than they did a week ago.

“At the same time, Scott Morrison has happily pocketed an $11,000 pay rise from this week, and stands to gain another $11,000 from the full tax cut package.

“This just shows that the system is broken if tax cuts supposed to benefit low and middle-income families are not enough to offset penalty rate pay cuts experienced by 700,000 workers.

“The fact that the tax cuts don’t even come close to making up for cuts to penalty rates exposes the penalty rate cuts as an attack on working people.

“The penalty rate cuts leave low-paid workers losing $2,000 a year for doing the hard slog of hospo on the weekends.

“The supposed benefits of the tax cuts are lost to these workers, who just find themselves falling further and further behind and unable to pay for life’s essentials.

“We are at the start of a new term of parliament and Prime Minister Scott Morrison has an opportunity to reject this pay inequity. So we are calling – again – on him to overturn these harsh and unfair penalty rate cuts.”