Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The government opposes the proposed amendment. We do so on the basis that, as proposed, the program has a number of safeguards firmly in place. To be eligible for the hiring credit, an employer must have increased their headcount—that is, the number of total employees in the business must have gone up. In addition, an employer must have increased their payroll—that is, the amount that they are paying their employees in totality must also have gone up. So a business will not be able to sack somebody and replace them with somebody else, or multiples of somebody else, because in the end both the total number of employees and the total payroll need to increase for an employer to be eligible under this scheme. They're the additionality provisions about ensuring that it helps to support new jobs for young people in Australia. There are detailed record-keeping arrangements in place to ensure that those provisions can be enforced and are adhered to. I also note that all of the provisions of the Fair Work Act in relation to matters of unfair dismissal and general protections continue to exist and apply to protect existing employees.