WHILE maintaining the supply of a skilled workforce has always been an issue for regional businesses, industrial relations laws have often served to impede that goal.
Those expressing greatest concern at the Regional Chamber of Commerce conference were businesses reliant on a flexible work-force. Be it fruit picking or tourism, from the Gascoyne to the Kimberley and South West, the issue was the same.
Tourism Council of WA president Manny Papadoulis expressed dismay at the Labor Government’s new industrial relations laws and the effect they would have on regional business.
“Its going to have a dramatic effect and it’s going to restrict some of the things we as can do and the jobs that we can offer,” Mr Papadoulis said.
New Norcia managing director Roger Sullivan said the industrial relations laws created only losers and no winners.
He said he had been forced to close his New Norcia cafe on public holidays in anticipation of the extra loading for staff.
“We simply can’t afford to pay a dishwasher $37 an hour on public holidays,” Mr Sullivan said.
As a result, he said the staff lost out because they didn’t have a job, the business operator missed out on business and the consumer missed out.
Chamber of Minerals and Energy president Peter Lalor said it was not only the demand for labour that was of concern but also a question of finding people who were willing to leave the city for the bush.
He said the reduction and abolition of zone rebates, as well as the removal of key services, had led to a decline in the mining sector, the solution for which had come in
the form of fly-in fly out operations.
Only last week the Murchison Health Service said it would use the fly-in fly-out incentive to attract nurses to the town of Cue.
