Mr. Tim Fenn:

What we see, day in, day out, in our industry is the desire on the part of employers to take on people, train them and move them on as quickly as possible into more permanent employment and permanent contracts. There may be individual cases which are different. What I said earlier before Senator Gavan came in was that our industry has full-time employment, part-time employment, seasonal employment and a certain portion of casual employment. By and large, there is a big fluctuation in the demand for the hours required. Given that hotels are open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, there is a huge number of hours to be filled. What we see is employers seeking to reduce the number of employees they have on their payrolls, get people to stay with their businesses for longer periods and improve retention. In so doing, they will do their best to move these people from what I would call initial part-time casual labour into the more full-time work. Perhaps this was not the case in Senator Gavan's past experience, but that is what we see today.

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