House debates Questions without Notice

Small Business

Thursday, 20 March 2008 House of Representatives

Ms Julie Bishop

Ms Julie Bishop Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition

3:29 pm

My question is to the Prime Minister. Now that the Deputy Prime Minister has given Australians a guarantee that no worker will be worse off under Labor’s workplace relations laws, will the Prime Minister give that same guarantee to Australia’s two million small-business operators?

Kevin Rudd

Kevin Rudd Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister

No working families in this country will be worse off as a consequence of the industrial relations laws that we have advanced here in this parliament—in contrast to those which were advanced by those opposite. The second point is this: I back entirely every remark made by the minister for small business. The absolute regulation avalanche that the previous government had descend on the heads of small business is a matter of national disgrace; you should be condemned for it.