Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

WILSON () (): We're back here again talking about the importance of penalty rates and this legislation, the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025, that the government simply doesn't want to hear the voices of Australian small business on. Deputy Speaker Freelander, you may recall only a few moments ago we had a division in this chamber because we wanted to send this legislation off to a committee inquiry. We then had the Leader of the House, the ultimate in bluster, come into this chamber and make an excuse about why this legislation should never see the light of day from the perspective and the input of the small businesses of this nation. His argument was allegedly that the motion we put forward referring it to a committee was inaccurate because there had been a change in the title of the committee. That was his magnificent, intelligent, insightful contribution. There's just one problem. The changes to the titles haven't actually been printed yet. According to the Clerk of this House, he is wrong and it would have been justified, and there would have been an inquiry had it passed. So what the Leader of the House did in this place was use bluster and bluff to once again convince those on the other side of a justification about why Australians should not have input into legislation that affects them and directly impacts small businesses across this country.

There's one reason they're doing this. It's that they can't tell anybody what the impact of this legislation will be on small business across the country. When we had our briefing with the minister, we asked for simple information since Labor had gone on this pathway of introducing its legislative victory lap. We asked simple questions: You're proposing new legislation that directly undermines the independence of the Fair Work Commission. So, tell us now, Minister, when we can see the regulatory impact statement. 'Well, there isn't one.' So we asked another question: how many small businesses in Australia will be impacted as a consequence of this legislation? 'Ah, we don't know.' In fact, as I said in the other debate, they are taking the three-monkey approach—hear no small business, see no small business, speak to no small business—because they have no interest in understanding the consequences, because they are simply engaging in their legislative victory.

It's extraordinary, frankly, how much the minister has stuffed this process up. If you think about this legislation, their claim is that there has been this great threat to penalty rates, when that side of the chamber supports penalty rates and this side of the chamber supports penalty rates. I do concede that I haven't canvassed the views of the crossbench and the Independents—or the corporate funded Independents—but I'm willing to bet that they're not kicking up a stink about this, as far as I'm aware; I might be wrong. So, we have about 95 per cent of the entire parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia in support of penalty rates, but apparently they're under threat. It's a pretty amazing claim, but we know the history of the Labor Party in finding pathways to run scare campaigns on the community. They are quite effective at it; you've got to give them credit where credit's due and respect your opponents for the skills they have.

They ran a scare campaign because the retail industry of Australia said, 'We want to pay workers more so we can make it simpler, easier and fairer.' The assumption of the Australian Labor Party is that every retail outlet in this country—the local milk bar, the local bookshop—has this massive HR department sitting behind them, and they go over these legislative tomes bit by bit to understand: we're going to employ somebody who's going to pick up dishes, or shelve a book, during the minutes and the seconds of different times of day, but the rates should be different depending on whether they're washing the dishes or working at the checkout. So, if you shelve a book it's one price; if you swipe it through the swiping machine it's a different price. If you wash a dish it's one price; if you lay it on the table in front of somebody who has ordered the dish it's a different price.

I don't know about you, but that sounds like the definition of insanity to me. You don't need to take my opinion for it. You just need to look at—I don't know—the government department that is legally responsible for oversighting policy and employment law in this nation. Even they can't figure it out, so much so that they have short-changed their own employees. When the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations in Australia cannot figure out how to pay people under Labor's laws, then perhaps—I've got a funny feeling—the laws aren't that clear; they're a bit complex. And maybe for someone who's just set up a small business—at a strip shopping centre, or working from home, or maybe they rented out a warehouse and are moving stock, or are running a digital business online and want to employ people—it's not their core focus, the details of this, that and the other and the regulations and everything else. It's not their focus. The laws are a bit complex, and they're not getting it right.

So—shock, horror!—some people say, 'Actually, it's cheaper to pay workers more than it is to pay an army of lawyers, accountants and all these other people to seek advice, because I'd rather that the people who work for me be happier and have better outcomes.' Funnily enough, the Fair Work Commission has come along sometimes and said, 'Actually, that makes a lot of sense.' They're not in the business—well, they shouldn't be, anyway—of making accountants and lawyers richer. They certainly shouldn't be. Their practice and purpose should be making sure Australians get paid well for the work they do as part of lifting the Australian economy. But you can just imagine it: alright, Labor's been elected. We all accept it. It is what it is. They've got 94 seats. You're flooding over to the other side of the parliament, with the egos that go with it. They've gone over and succeeded in getting elected. Here it is—we're now passing a piece of legislation to stop workers getting paid more. It's an interesting revelation.

Then, of course, last Thursday, the Prime Minister wanted his great victory lap day where it was all going to be about penalty rates, and he was going to be doing a little 'whoop, whoop' around this chamber and out in the public square, doing press conferences. They had the people as props for exactly the argument they wanted to run. What happened? We asked simple, reasonable questions of the minister: What's the regulatory impact statement? How many small businesses are going to be impacted? What's the consultation process? Now we've asked this outrageous thing, 'Can we have an inquiry in the House of Representatives?' The answer, by the way—the decision of parliament and the Labor government—was no. They chose to silence and censor small business as part of this process.

So you can imagine the Prime Minister, who just wanted this perfect outcome, but, all of a sudden, the media went, 'Actually, that's an entirely reasonable question—where is the regulatory impact statement?' and the minister, then said, 'Well, we haven't got one.' The media said: 'It's an entirely reasonable question. What are the impacts on all the small businesses in the country?' Of course, it's a simple point. There are no penalty rates on jobs that don't exist, and, when you've got record business insolvencies and rising unemployment, it's this little point.

Of course, what would have happened is they wanted to do that little 'whoop, whoop' victory lap around this chamber and say, 'We've done this, we've saved it.' We know the rhetoric. I love a bit of rhetoric myself, but the Prime Minister loves it more. He doesn't have the equivalent of a card, but maybe we'll get a card that he'll flash around the chamber for this purpose. Let's wait and see; you never know. The prop, even though we're not allowed to use them, pops up every now and again.

But you can just imagine in the PMO that the Prime Minister is sitting there, and he just wants to have his moment in the sun. All of a sudden, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry says:

This change is a backwards step and out of touch with the realities of a modern economy … This bill is at odds with the government's plans to improve productivity, and instead injects more rigidity and complexity into the Fair Work laws.

That's not an endorsement, even though we were told there was all this consultation and everybody was on board.

Then, of course, the Australian Industry Group came out and said:

This is badly drafted legislation that is going to make it harder for employers to employ people who want to work when it suits them.

All of a sudden, we're undermining wages and we're undermining people's capacity for workplace flexibility, things like mums being able to go and pick up kids from school and dads going to pick up kids from school in between their workplace arrangements, which is something I certainly always support. The Australian Industry Group continued:

It will reduce avenues for lifting productivity when we're about to convene a Roundtable on how to lift it.

You know that thing the Treasurer, who sits over there somewhere on the other side of the chamber, keeps going on about? He keeps going on about how important productivity is because we've got to increase standards of living—a point I agree with—but the Australian Industry Group is now saying: 'No, we're calling you on that one. That's not going to happen because of this type of legislation, particularly the sloppy drafting of the minister.'

Then, you have the Australian Retailers Association. They come out and say: 'It would remove flexibility in wage negotiations and introduce additional costs, complexities and administrative pressures. Retailers argue that many workers prefer consistent, reliable income rather than complex penalty structures and modern agreements that could include higher base pay and offer stability and simplicity without sacrificing take-home pay.' Okay. We've now got ACCI, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry; the Australian Industry Group; and now the Australian Retailers Association saying this law doesn't actually achieve what they say it's going to achieve.

Then, of course, the Minerals Council—the industry that actually creates wealth for the country—says:

The government's changes will reduce productivity and compromise Australia's competitiveness in global export markets. The laws are also becoming a decisive material factor in whether new projects proceed or not, and whether billions of dollars in investment capital is invested in Australia or elsewhere.

So it undermines growth, undermines workers, undermines independence, undermines flexibility and, of course, has sloppy drafting.

We're at the point where the Prime Minister's probably sitting around in his little bunker over there in the ministerial wing. He picks up the phone to the minister, (02)6277—I can't remember the rest of the numbers for the minister's phone—and says: 'Hey, Minister, this isn't going well. Why is this law, that we thought we had an electoral mandate to just smash out, not going the way we thought it would?' And, of course, the minister would say: 'Well, you know, Prime Minister, we drafted the laws; we're doing what our scare campaign was intended to do. We're just bringing it into effect. We're doing exactly what you wanted us to do.' But the Prime Minister asks a simple question: 'Where's the regulatory impact statement, Minister? It's a simple question the media's asking us, and you can't answer it.' 'Well, Prime Minister, we didn't do one.'

The Prime Minister is, of course, going to turn around and say, 'Well, what about this question of small businesses? How many small businesses are going to be impacted? Surely you know the answer. This is what I put you in the job for!' Of course, the minister would have to respond and say, 'Well, hang on, Prime Minister'—I'm on hold, Deputy Speaker. And then she'll come back and say: 'We didn't actually check. We didn't check how many millions of Australian small businesses might be impacted by these laws, how many might be exposed or at risk or go under.'

The Prime Minister, not unreasonably, would turn around and say, 'Minister, I don't think you're on top of your job.' I think it's even worse than that. You're the Prime Minister and you're sitting there saying, 'And why are they saying the legislation's poorly drafted and sloppy?' 'We haven't actually done the work.' This is at the point where—you know sometimes when some people just hang up because it's easier than having to answer a difficult question? I think that's the point at which the minister would have just hung up. I get why. It would have been difficult. You have people saying it's sloppy legislation, poorly drafted and isn't going to have the desired effect. It will actually undermine workers. And this is the legislation that we, as a parliament, are now being asked to consider.

It's even worse than that because of course we then, as the opposition—actually in a very constructive way—come into this chamber and say: 'You know you've got that committee that does inquiries into things like laws around employment? You changed the name of it, but it still exists. It existed in the last parliament; it exists in this one. Can we do a little inquiry to tidy up the neat little problems you've got with your legislation and your sloppy drafting?' We then went through the hoopla. We had the Leader of the House come in. He blustered and he bluffed and everybody laughed and it was all very entertaining for the 94 government members of the House, because half of it's a confidence game. You've got to show there's not actually a problem when there's actually a very serious problem. Anyway, we got there. They voted against an inquiry; they voted to silence and shut out the small businesses of this country.

Well, we're now being asked to vote on legislation that I don't think this government has any confidence in. I don't think the government has any confidence in their minister. This is like day one basically, or week one effectively, of the government actually getting on with its agenda. If this is where we are now, it's a pretty poor sign of things to come. Australians need confidence in laws around workplace relations and employment now more than ever.

We are now at an impasse where there is legislation before the parliament; industry is saying it's not going to do the job it's designed to do; we all support penalty rates; we have the minister not really confident that her legislation is up to chop; and we're faced with this reality of considering it in detail before we go on and vote accordingly.

The challenge for every member in this House is what it is we seek to do and what is the way forward. The key thing is we need to make sure that we have a path to get the voice of small business into this parliament as part of this conversation. It's a simple proposition: if the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations can't figure out drafting, and then, in addition to that, how to implement Labor's industrial relations agenda and can't even pay its own workers right, then how is the person running the milk bar, the home business, the corner store, the local florist—without an HR department, without a bureaucracy and with thousands of pages mounting every single day—supposed to figure out how Labor's laws are going to work.

We shouldn't forget that this is how these laws are designed, because, of course, Labor has a very clever, actually, but sneaky answer to this. The sneaky answer to this is, 'Well, that's it; we'll just get the unions to come in and do it for you.' You lose agency over your business, you lose agency over your employees, and you become appropriated by the vast network of the Labor Party and its various arms or, more correctly put, the ACTU's arms and, of course, its political arm, which is the Australian Labor Party. But this does nothing for growth. It does nothing for activity. It does nothing to improve Australian industry. It does nothing for future generations of Australians. It does nothing for workers, particularly because right now we have this massive problem where people need arrangements of work.

One of the key ways you get productivity enhancement is when people do things because they're happy and because it actually works for them. Instead, we have a government that is seeking to kneecap at every single point small businesses and workers to come to arrangements on their own mutual benefits and their own mutual terms—undermining pay increases, undermining employers, undermining the independent work regulator they set up to determine these things, all in pursuit of a scare campaign of a problem that didn't exist. In addition to that, in a parliament where, as far as I've counted as late, everyone supports penalty rates, and against a backdrop of a minister who isn't on top of her brief, who has done a sloppy version of drafting her legislation and who is increasingly not confident enough to stand up and make the case for us.

Now the parliament faces a choice. My only hope is that, in that other ethereal place called the Senate chamber, Labor might back down from its attempt to silence and shut out other voices. They might actually provide the pathway for input, not just from the opposition but, hey, even from some of the other minor parties, and, of course, from the small businesses of this nation so that they can have a say in their future, their destiny and their opportunity to employ Australians. Then they can call out the limitations of Labor's agenda. A partnership between small business and workers is how you're going to boost productivity growth, not laws and intimidation, and certainly not by adding more costs, more regulations that have one purpose: to take money out of the pockets of workers and fund industrial relations lawyers, accountants and back-end HR departments for local corner stores, home businesses and, of course, web based businesses and the full spectrum of startup side hustles and shared-equity schemes across this country.

Why would Labor want to do this? Because in the absence of an agenda that actually focuses on rising standards of living and finding a pathway to achieve raising standards of living, their only pathway forward is to go to the bottom of the barrel, find a new low in the trough, and think, 'If you mine and harvest that, somehow you're going to get a better outcome.' That's a short-term political hit. It's absolutely a short-term sugar hit. It doesn't solve any of the fundamental structural problems. And now we face a situation where the government, increasingly concerned about the sloppy nature of its drafting of its own legislation, is concerned about the process that its own minister has gone through. Time, patience and cooperation would have fixed it, but when they were asked for that in this chamber, they shut people's voices down. They shut down the pathway for people outside this chamber who had constructive things to say to improve the laws of this country from having input. Our hope is that this is fixed in this next chapter. But, frankly, it is over to the government, because they have not been willing participants in this conversation. There's not just declining confidence in the minister but, in addition to that, declining confidence that the government is actually interested in listening to industry about how it can improve workers' conditions, flexibility and wages. It's such an important thing to do. I understand it requires some people to step back and to accept that maybe not everything is being done on their terms. But I can tell you that, if you do, the workers and the small businesses of this nation will thank you.

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