Malcolm Turnbull has given his unequivocal support for the Fair Work Commission ruling to reduce Sunday penalty rates, agreeing it will result in more jobs and more businesses being open on the weekend.
After a week of being dogged by federal Labor to reject the decision because it would hit the hip pocket of more than 600,000 workers in retail and hospitality, the prime minister says there's "masses of evidence" to support the change.
"We support the decision, we accept the decision, we recognise it was a careful decision and we respect it as decision of the independent umpire," he told reporters in Barcaldine, far western Queensland on Sunday where he was visiting a solar farm.
Treasurer Scott Morrison warned Labor is putting the nation's wage arbitration system at risk by opposing the decision, saying Opposition Leader Bill Shorten is behaving irresponsibly.
"Any decision the unions don't like, he will reverse. That's madness," Mr Morrison told Sky News.
"He should be abolishing the Fair Work Commission if that's what he thinks is the way it should be."
Labor's employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor said that was "nonsense".
"We support the commission but not in this instance," he told Sky News.
"We are still calling upon the prime minister to change his mind and join Labor to support low paid workers."
Pauline Hanson believes the reduction in Sunday rates will help small business owners.
The One Nation leader accused Labor and the unions of hypocrisy in the matter, saying in her fish and chip shop she had to pay $34 an hour in wages where the McDonald's down the road only paid $26.
"Where is the union jumping up and down about that with the battlers?" Senator Hanson told ABC TV on Sunday.
Asked how she felt about the low-paid people who voted for her taking a cut after this decision, Senator Hanson said: "They are getting their wage."
"If you look at penalty rates and why it was brought in, because people had a full-time job through the week and they worked weekends," she said.
Unions NSW said Senator Hanson was supporting the greatest wage cut since the Great Depression.
"Mrs Hanson is a false prophet who purports to represent 'the battlers' while at the same time siding with Malcolm Turnbull's government to cut the pay of working people with the hardest those living in regional and rural communities," secretary Mark Morey said in a statement.
"The trade union movement intends to shine a light on One Nation and its duplicitous agenda of cutting the pay packets of working Australians."
