"An Abbott government minister has said business should help the government make the case for lowering penalty rates paid to millions of workers on Sundays and public holidays.
Assistant Infrastructure Minister Jamie Briggs said it was unfair that small businesses had to pay double on Sundays and triple on New Year’s Eve, and it was on the government’s radar.
“We cannot go on in a society where we are charging people on a day which is a normal operating day, double what you would on any other,” Mr Briggs told a small business audience.
“We cannot accept that on New Year’s Eve you can’t attend your favourite restaurant because it is impossible for that restaurant to pay its staff to open up.”
""Let's remember this minister, Jamie Briggs, was the principle of architect of WorkChoices during the Howard year," Mr O'Connor told Fairfax Media.
The Coalition is still haunted by the spectre of former prime minister John Howard's WorkChoices policy. As opposition leader in 2010, Tony Abbott declared the plan ''dead, buried and cremated'' and said the Coalition would never seek to reintroduce it."
