Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

We will get to that. It is interesting you raise that point. The problem with the Labor Party on this subject is they are like kids in a candy shop. They have got their instructions from their industrial arm. Let us work through the SDA example just because the member for Wakefield is here.

It depends which union you work for, but the process is you start off as a union organiser, commonly known as the 'shoppies', and Don gives you the approval to go up to the next step. And then you go, 'I am not sure all the union bosses in this place did start off as workers,' and that may be one of the issues. You then end up getting in the right faction and, depending on the power of your faction, you get placed into a parliament. Some get placed into the upper house in the state parliament of South Australia—we remember those sorts of people; some get placed into safe seats in a state parliament; and some get placed into what were formerly safe seats in the federal parliament. Occasionally they turn them into marginal seats and occasionally do it the other way, which is less usual. That is generally the process, so there are a lot of former union bosses on that side, as I have established already in this contribution.

What unions and, therefore, their political arm, the Labor Party, do not ever argue for when it comes to workplace relations is a balance that encourages those who are not in the employment club to take the opportunity to join that employment club. That is where our policy is in contrast to theirs. This Fair Work Amendment Bill 2013 is focused on union power and on protecting those in the system, the people with a job who are members of a union. But, the more regulation there is of people's workplaces, the harder it is for employers and employees to be able to create more opportunities for more people, and that is where we are focused.

The difference between us and the Labor Party on this subject is stark. The Labor Party legislate for unions. They legislate for the worst circumstance. They presume all bosses are evil and that all bosses will seek at some point in time to do damage or inflict some pain on their workforce rather than trusting that, instinctively, employers want to get on and do well and small-business people want to get on and do well.

Let us take a scenario. Let us say I own a pie shop. I have a couple of employees and the pie shop is going well, putting aside a couple of customers who occasionally get—

Mr Champion interjecting—

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