Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Of course you do, and I think you need to have very strong safeguards. It is something I have discussed with the SDA—the shoppies union, to put it colloquially—who I think do an outstanding job in representing their workers. The issue is what you do to small businesses that shut down on weekends, particularly on Sundays, whose workers were quite happy to get 150 per cent of the award but that close down because it was ratcheted up to 175 or 200 per cent. Of course there is a fair process to be gone through through Fair Work in relation to this. But I am concerned about those, particularly university students, who have missed out on this. Senator Brown raised the point about families. If you are a full-time employee you should of course get your penalty rates. But I think we need to have a reasonable national conversation about casual employees and also make it very clear that once you get beyond the 20 full-time equivalent employees you should be big enough to look after yourself and be subject to enterprise bargaining agreements where there are appropriate safeguards in place. When I look at the figures for youth unemployment in my home state of South Australia, it does concern me. All I am suggesting is that there needs to be a sensible approach to this.

But I cannot support what the government wants to do with individual flexibility arrangements, because it does not have, as Senator Brown rightly pointed out, the safeguards that were recommended by the panel. It goes way beyond that. It does not allow for taking into account that it be specified in writing, that it be relatively insignificant and that the value of non-monetary benefits be proportionate. In the absence of those safeguards, I think we need to simply reject what the government is proposing in relation to that. Part 4 of this bill does not contain these safeguards. As a result, I cannot support this measure.

I also have concerns about the provisions in part 9 of this bill, namely the ability of the Fair Work Commission to dismiss an application for unfair dismissal without holding a hearing or conducting a conference. I think that needs further debate, further consideration. There ought to be sufficient safeguards for workers, and I do not think that the government has thought through those amendments carefully enough.

Overall, I think the measures that I have said I will support will enhance productivity and enhance employment, particularly on greenfield sites. These are important changes and I emphasise to the 33 people who may be listening on NewsRadio—maybe it is 34, and every time I say that I get abusive emails saying, 'I have been listening and how dare you dismiss the number of listeners'—that these changes are based on a review by the Gillard government into Fair Work and I think that the changes that I will be supporting and that a number of my crossbench colleagues will be supporting are fair and measured and reasonable and are based on what a previous Labor government review suggested. That is why I will support the second reading of this bill.