Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Gilmore is a hard-working federal member who represents an electorate that includes many areas of high unemployment and many areas where there is youth unemployment. What she knows is that the decision of the Fair Work Commission will enable more small businesses to open on weekends, which will provide more job opportunities for young people.

None of us are going to take the Leader of the Opposition's version of what the honourable member has said as gospel. The honourable member, before she became a member of this House, was a schoolteacher for years. She knows—we have all been with her in her electorate—the situation of young people in the electorate of Gilmore very well, and it is very heartfelt. But the reality is that the basis of the Fair Work Commission's decision, a decision that was taken following a reference from the Leader of the Opposition, was that the reduction in penalty rates would create more opportunities for employment. That was Iain Ross's rationale for the decision. Of course the hypocrisy of the Labor Party in suggesting that penalty rates can never be varied flies in the face of one enterprise agreement after another, including many signed by the Leader of the Opposition. I have the Cleanevent agreement. That one says, 'This agreement is intended to be comprehensive and it excludes any protected conditions in an award, including penalty rates.' There you go; that is just one. There is a long list of them. Dozens and dozens of them.

Let me look at the comparison between big business and small business. This is a very important issue. We stand for small business; Labor invariably lines up with big business. How is it that a small takeaway business pays $29.16 on a Sunday for an employee under the award, whereas McDonald's down the street can pay $21.08 for the same worker doing the same work? Why? Because they have done a deal with the union. And what about—

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