Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Oh, I'm happy to have them interact with me! It's actually a great pleasure. I haven't said anything for a long time that has caused anybody any distress, so if I'm doing it now then we're getting somewhere, Deputy Speaker!

The more important part of this is that I don't like to go to the Australian people and say, 'This bill is going to fix every problem in our workplace.' That's because they never do. If you think you're going to fix the wage disparity by just this one bill—that it will all be fixed tomorrow—then it's as the member for Kingsford Smith said, 'In time, we will address some of this.' In time—not tomorrow and not next week, but in time.

If this bill does go towards wage parity between men and women, and does make a difference, it will have my wholehearted support. I'm speaking to those people now who are listening to this debate and getting a view that this, as I said, is the panacea for all ills in every industrial relations area—every business. It's not! Parts of this bill will actually cause businesses like the one I used to own a real problem when they start to say, 'Well, that similar business over there, which is a very, very large one,' perhaps it's a Coles-Myer, 'can afford to pay at a certain rate.' My business, which was totally different, may not have been able to afford that. Did we pay the award? Yes. Did we pay over the award to every employee? Yes—mainly because I didn't want to get into trouble! But we paid over the award—always paid over the award.

Were we flexible? Most of my staff were female and they had children, so we had to be flexible otherwise they wouldn't work with me. Some had to come after they dropped their kids off at school, some had to leave before they came home from school and some chose to work at night so that their partner was home. Of course we were flexible, because we wanted the staff! The most valuable thing for any small business in this country is their staff. You have to have the product to sell, but the staff who are in that building are crucial to the wellbeing of the business. Their relationships with their customers or their relationships with their suppliers are crucially important to the running of any business.

Now we're getting legislation like this, which has been criticised quite strongly by a number of people in the business community, who have said, 'Well, you'd expect them to do that.' What I'm worried about with legislation like this is not the glowing reports of what this legislation may or may not do, it's the unintended consequences of what you may have put forward. We heard the member for Kingsford Smith say that all we have done today is attack unions. I ask the member for Kingsford Smith to go back over the Hansard and try to find somewhere where I have attacked a union. Try to find one place where I have attacked a union. Try to find—

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