Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for La Trobe for his question. I recognise he is a great local member, someone with real-life experience as a former senior policeman. It was this government that removed the burden of Labor’s unfair dismissal laws on small business. The result of that is that, since we removed the unfair dismissal laws on small business, 387,000 new jobs have been created, 84 per cent of them full time. Why has this occurred? It is because now small business has the courage to go out and employ people with no employment history. That is why the number of people who are long-term unemployed has dropped to record low levels in Australia. That is why youth unemployment has dropped to low levels in Australia. The OECD found that restrictive and punitive laws, such as the unfair dismissal laws, act as a disincentive for employers to take on more staff and disadvantage those most disadvantaged. Of course, the Labor Party has a rather complicated policy in relation to the unfair dismissal laws.

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