I understand there has been a mixed reaction by Canberra businesses and unions to this proposal. The commission suggested a paring back of the high rates paid to hospitality and retail workers on Sundays to the same level as Saturday payments..

The ink was barely dry on the Productivity Commission’s draft report on workplace relations yesterday when the ACTU, which represents just 12 per cent of private-sector employees, began its scaremongering. Some of the report’s proposals, it claimed, were worse than the Howard government’s Work Choices. Rubbish. The report treads a cautious middle ground, between Australia’s sclerotic Fair Work system — a legacy of the Rudd and Gillard governments — and the flexibility needed to maximise growth, prosperity and employment. Parts of the small business lobby dismissed the report as underwhelming, but it has provided the Abbott government with a useful blueprint. In the present political climate, both the Coalition and the opposition, cowed in different ways by the unions’ disproportionate influence, would, unfortunately, recoil from more sweeping reforms.

One of the centrepieces of the report, a proposed two-tier system of weekend penalty rates, is long overdue. Safeguarding penalties for nurses, paramedics, firefighters and others would encourage those highly qualified, skilled workers to continue to take on unsociable shifts to provide the 24/7 services our society expects.

But, as the report says, the workplace relations system should embrace the concept of seven-day weeks in retailing, tourism, hospitality and entertainment. There is no reason Sunday penalty rates in those sectors should exceed Saturday rates. In an era when Sunday is often the most popular day for shopping and dining out, it is no longer realistic to persevere with a system that is unsustainable for retailers, especially small businesses. Current penalties provide a pharmacy assistant, for example, with 50 per cent more money for working on a Sunday than the normal pay rate for a qualified pharmacist. Too often, such anomalies cause business owners to shut their shops, under-using capital, inconveniencing customers and reducing profits and productivity. Predictably, the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association has already vowed to campaign against the proposed changes. But earlier this year the SDA showed it was open to reform. Its enterprise agreement with Business SA, yet to be ratified, scrapped Saturday and halved Sunday penalties, in return for higher base pay.

Australian today

IMO

There should be no penalty rates on the weekends and the country should operate 24/7

Saturdays and Sundays are not different to any other day in the culture of atheism.

Times have changed and there should be no penalty rates.