Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) | Hansard source

This bill, the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026, asks parliament to consider two very different propositions cynically tied together. The first is sensible. It deals with the workload facing the Fair Work Commission. They are under water and we need to help them. We fully support the government in this aim. This seeks to make the system faster, more practical and less bogged down in process. Justice delayed is justice not done. Sadly, right now, people are not getting their cases heard before the Fair Work Commission, and we need to rectify this. When a worker or an employer is caught in a workplace dispute, delay isn't an administrative inconvenience; it's stressful, costly and deeply personal and it can often lead to unjust outcomes.

The second proposition is very, very different. It's going to create a framework that will allow the Commonwealth, the federal government, to preference businesses in procurement because of some random industrial instrument they have. This is a major change and deserves a lot of scrutiny. It shouldn't be bundled together with this Fair Work Commission reform. This is why the position should be very straightforward. Let's help the Fair Work Commission and, having done that, let's have a real, honest debate about what we should do about this second element of the bill.

In my electorate of Cook, this isn't an abstract debate. We have thousands of small and medium businesses across San Souci, Gymea, Jannali, Caringbah, Miranda, Sutherland, Kirrawee, Taren Point and the surrounding suburbs. We've got builders, electricians, plumbers, civil contractors, family retailers, professional service firms, transport operators, suppliers and subcontractors. Small and medium enterprises employee 70 per cent of Australia, and in Cook it's even higher than that.

I've got businesses like Shire Pool Care, Little's cafe, Loftus Pies and AP Performers. These businesses don't have large legal departments. They don't have endless time to navigate industrial complexity. They're already dealing with higher power prices, higher insurance, higher rents, higher material costs and higher inflation under this government. All they want is for rules to be fair, clear and workable so they can go about their business, serving their community and doing it in a professional way. They want to compete on the quality of their work, their reliability, their price and their ability to deliver.

Instead, we've got a government that's turned procurement into a system where they can rig procurements if you have the right industrial instrument. It's not just punishing small businesses; there are businesses like Amazon Australia—I was just speaking to them in my office earlier today—and AWS building the data centres of tomorrow.

Right now they choose not to use collective bargaining industrial instruments because they want to bring in the best and brightest. They want to be able to move them around the world. We're saying we're not going to preference Amazon in government procurements. We'll go and find some of the Labor Party's mates who've got the right industrial instrument and get them to build a data centre. AWS may have the best prices and the absolute best technology to be building the best data centres of tomorrow, but, because they don't have this government's preferred collective bargaining agreement, we're going to give it to somebody else. This is absolutely ludicrous, and it needs proper debate. To tie this to the Fair Work Commission, which is absolutely denying justice to people by delaying their cases, is cynical. We should fix it and split apart this bill.

The Fair Work Commission amendments in the bill are largely practical. The commission has been under serious workload pressure. Applications have surged, cases are taking longer, and the system's being placed under strain. We can't ignore this, and a workplace tribunal that cannot deal with matters efficiently does not serve workers, employers or the broader economy. For many people, the early dispute resolution stage is the best chance of resolving a matter quickly, and that's in the best interests of both the business and the worker. We're on the side of helping both the businesses and the workers. It's meant to be practical, it's meant to be quick and it's meant to avoid drawn-out, costly delays and often litigation. If these parties can sit down early, understand each other's position and reach a fair settlement, that's the best outcome for the business, the best outcome for the worker and the best outcome for society. This bill would allow the commission to get on with that early dispute resolution process without first having to resolve every threshold argument. Those questions can still be dealt with later, if they need to be, but they should not automatically stop the commission from trying to help the parties resolve the dispute.

For the small and medium businesses in Cook and the more than 70 per cent of hardworking employees of those small and medium enterprises, these changes matter. A local cafe in Oyster Bay, a builder in Caringbah, a mechanic in Kurnell or a medical practice in Miranda can't afford to have a workplace dispute drag on unnecessarily. Equally, a worker who believes they've been unfairly treated shouldn't have to wait months and months for the system to move. These people might be struggling to make rent—the increased cost of rent that's gone up since these new budgetary changes. Justice delayed is justice denied, and this principle applies to both sides—both employees and employers. So we will support where this bill helps the Fair Work Commission deal with these matters more quickly.

But the government has chosen to attach something else. These procurement bargaining powers provisions aren't administrative. These go to the heart of how the Commonwealth government may operate. Again, we've got a government choosing their preferred industrial relations instrument over the substance of what the procurement is trying to do. Should we be building the data centres of tomorrow, the AI of tomorrow, Australia's competitive advantage, just because they've dealt with the right unions, or do we want the best technology for Australian businesses to use AI to harness that productivity? Our productivity is dropping through the floor. It's been hit and has a crater in it. We need to be procuring from the best and brightest.

Commonwealth procurements should be based on value for money, capability, compliance with the law, safety, quality and integrity. Taxpayers need to get the best outcomes for their dollars, and they're not. That's one of the reasons this side of politics is having to increase taxes so strongly. It's why we have the highest taxing budget of all time. Income has never been taxed more strongly than it is right now under this government. And the only time it's going to be taxed more than it is right now is next year, and the only time after next year is the year after and all the way to 2030. Thanks to their bracket creep tax, it's going to get worse.

What we should be doing is reducing government spending, and one of the ways to do that is to have a procurement process that focuses on outcomes, cost and quality, not a preferred industrial relations instrument. The businesses of Australia should understand this. What we are doing here today is going to add cost to the Australian budget, which means this government will tax the businesses out there watching this more. You will be paying more to find their preferred suppliers who use their preferred union mates and supplying those industrial instruments. That is what this legislation will do.

There are over 23,000 businesses in Cook. Most of them are small and medium sized. Many operate under awards; many pay above award rates. Many have flexible arrangements for their staff and their businesses because it suits their staff better. Many don't have the enterprise agreement because it's not necessary or practical for them and often not in the employee's best interest. This doesn't make them bad employees; it doesn't make them bad employers. It doesn't mean they're less capable, and it doesn't mean they should be excluded from government work. A procurement system that says, 'You may be lawful, you may be capable, you may be the best person for the job, and you may be the best person for the Australian people,' and then says to them, 'You don't have the preferred employer agreement, and, therefore, we're not going to give you that job,' is not fair. Not only is it not fair, it doesn't make economic sense, and it's narrowing competition, increases costs and means this government will tax hardworking Australians more.

When the costs rise on the Commonwealth funded projects, taxpayers pay, businesses pay and employees pay in higher tax take, and that is what we are living right now. We are in this cost-of-living crisis, Australians are paying more for everyday goods to other firms—groceries, energy, insurance, rent and mortgages—but you're also paying more to your government. Australians are paying more than they have ever. Income tax has never been taxed higher as a percentage of GDP than now. Company and business income tax has never been taxed higher as a percentage of GDP than now, and it's forecast to go higher as soon as they ram through the Labor-Greens deal to tax Australians more.

In Cook, these people know what happens when government gets infrastructure wrong. In Cook, we see roads under pressure; we see local facilities stretched; we see a lack of sporting fields; we see overdevelopment with no new schools; we see no new roads, no new metros and no new light rail; we see projects delayed and made more expensive; and we see housing supply not being addressed. We want the roads, schools and services to keep up. Cook was one of the few local councils in Sydney that exceeded its housing targets last term, but we had no new infrastructure to show for it—lots of new houses, no new schools, no new roads, no new metros and no new light rails, but we exceeded our housing targets. How is that fair?

There is also much more broad concern about competition in the Australian economy. We need more competition, not less. We need procurements that encourage more people to compete, not fewer. We need to make it easier for capable businesses to participate in government work, not harder. We must open the doors for local firms, not create another barrier that favours those with big resources and big industrial arrangements that are preferred by this government.

The construction sector is a clear example. Across the Sutherland Shire, people understand the importance of tradies and contractors. These are the people who are building our homes. These are the people who maintain our schools, improve our roads and fix things. Many of them are small businesses; many of them are family businesses. Many of them started with one ute, one apprentice and years of hard work. These businesses should not be told that Commonwealth work is effectively out of reach for them unless they adopt this government's preferred industrial models. This is not pro worker, it's not pro small business, and, I'll tell you what, it's definitely not pro taxpayer.

It is particularly concerning because, once these procurement settings are created, they flow down supply chains. Let me explain what I mean. A Commonwealth contract may be awarded to a head contractor—maybe the M6 that the state Labor government's awarded, which is now closed because they can't complete the project—but the conditions they sign with that head contractor affect the subcontractors and the subbies to the subbies. It flows all the way down the chain. So, while a local business may not be contracting directly with the Commonwealth, if they're out there subcontracted to someone who does have that head contract with the Commonwealth, they can still be caught by the practical consequences of these rules.

To all the businesses out there—all the tradies in Cook who are listening to this—even if you don't have the contract with the Commonwealth, if your head contractor or the contractor above your contractor does, you may get caught up in this and be excluded from providing work underneath Commonwealth funded projects. This is how a policy that looks technical in Canberra can land directly on a small business in Taren Point, Kirrawee, Como or Oyster Bay.

If this government believes it's justified, it should make this case openly and have the debate about this bill. Don't cynically tie it to what is actually a good piece of legislation about the Fair Work Commission. Let's get that bill passed and let's have an honest and open debate. This is trickery. This is beltway-bandit politics in Canberra to trick the Australian small businesses that they are hoping are not watching. Well, we are going to hold them to account for this. The government believes it's justified—well, make the case openly. Let's pull this legislation apart and have a debate.

The coalition won't oppose practical reform. We will say yes to good legislation and we will say yes to half of this. What we are saying is don't bundle good reform with cynical reform that's going to hurt small businesses, that's going to hurt the tradies in my electorate, that's going to hurt the small businesses in my electorate and that's going to hurt the taxpayers in my electorate, who are going to have to pay more for your preferred cynical industrial arrangements.

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