Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy. Will the minister advise the House of the government’s policy approach for small business owners and their employees, and the prospects for successful implementation of these policies?

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the minister for small business and other things.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And everything else; and lots of things! I thank the member for Wakefield for his question. The Rudd government supports reward for effort, risk-taking and entrepreneurship. We support the freedom of working Australians to be employees or to choose a career in small business or independent contracting. The government will support small businesses by tackling inflation, which hit 16-year highs under the previous coalition government. We will tackle inflation by reining in the extravagant government spending of the ‘coalition Coreys’ over there. We will tackle inflation by investing in skills through an education revolution. We will tackle inflation by investing in infrastructure, including through a high-speed national broadband network. And we will tackle inflation by increasing workforce participation to boost the supply of labour.

The government will support small business by amending the Trade Practices Act to combat anticompetitive behaviour by powerful businesses and by reversing what the Business Council of Australia described as ‘the creeping re-regulation’ of the Australian business community that occurred over the 11 years of the previous government. This government will also fulfil its election commitment and introduce a fair and flexible industrial relations system, based on productivity. We will remove the red-tape burden on small business created by the farcical Work Choices ‘fairness’ test and we will take on the task of award modernisation, a task that was shirked by the coalition in 11½  years in government. And the government will work with small business in developing a fair dismissal code. The Rudd Labor government does not consider it fair that the four million Australians working in small businesses should be able to be sacked on the spot with no explanation, for no reason and with no remedy.

I noticed that last night the Manager of Opposition Business said that members of the former coalition cabinet did not know that Work Choices could make people worse off. What is he saying—that they did not know that sacking good workers would make them worse off? How out of touch can you get if you do not know that getting the sack makes you worse off?

I have been asked about the prospects for a successful implementation of the government’s policies. Those prospects are being threatened by the confusion and the divisions in the coalition. The opposition leader declared that Work Choices is dead but he was contradicted by the shadow minister for families, who said, ‘I think that whatever they put up we should vote against.’ But then he was contradicted by the Manager of Opposition Business, who said, ‘But the people have spoken and the Labor Party have a mandate to tear up Work Choices.’ But he was contradicted by the small business spokesman, who said that Labor’s attempts to apply unfair dismissal laws to small businesses would meet his ‘absolute and determined opposition’. But then he was contradicted by the shadow Treasurer, who said, ‘Labor ran very hard on this issue and they have a mandate for change.’ Flip, flop, flap.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Leader of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The question did not call for alternative policies.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question asked for the government’s approach to small business, so the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy—and I apologise to independent contractors and the service economy for having called them ‘other things’—will stick to the question.

Craig Emerson (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Finance Minister on Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was also asked about the prospects for successful implementation of these policies. The fact is that the opposition is divided and confused. It is out of touch with working families. The Rudd Labor government is building a modern economy to meet the challenges of the 21st century for the nation and for the working families of Australia.