Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I also support the motion made by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate to suspend standing orders. In the first instance, I have to say: Senator McKim, I was not aware of the revelations that you have just provided to the Senate. A deal has allegedly been done between a government minister and yourself, and a deal has been broken. Seriously! Did the minister even have authority to do the deal with you, now begs the question. That minister should today at least have the decency to front the press and actually confirm whether or not a deal was done. In this place, let's be honest, if a deal is done, you stick with the deal. It would appear that Stephen Jones, the Assistant Treasurer, did not have the authority, Senator McKim, to do the deal with you. I don't know what the deal was. I may not even agree with the deal, but I have to say: the revelations that a deal was done demand that the Assistant Treasurer front the media today and give an explanation to the Australian people.

Why do I say that? Because this is a government that was elected on a basis of integrity and transparency. As the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate has said, what this motion does is merely allow further scrutiny in relation to possibly the biggest industrial relations changes this country has seen for decades and decades. It doesn't ask for that scrutiny to be extended in an unreasonable time frame. In fact, what it says is basically, 'Give us the Christmas period to go out there and talk further to employers.' Because—and we all need to remember this—governments don't create jobs. Employers do. When you have every employer in the country standing up and saying, 'We agree with wage rises; we have nothing against wage rises, but this bill will not deliver wage rises,' I'd have thought you'd sit back for five minutes and just listen.

For the benefit of those in the gallery, this is the contempt with which the Albanese government treats businesses in Australia. To calculate costs for small business they have utilised a website called 'How much should I charge a consultant in Australia'. That sounds reasonable until you click on the link in the regulatory impact statement and the author of the article is described as 'a cross between a business strategist, a modern day spiritual healer and a self-development expert'. Benjamin J Harvey—and good on Benjamin J Harvey!—is:

… as comfortable working with Shamans to Strategists, Psychics to Sales Reps, Healers to Home Makers, Buddhists to Businessmen and Meditators to Mediators.

What does the government do? The government says, 'Sorry, it was a mistake,' and throws their own department under a bus. Interestingly, the figure of $175 per hour was actually the same figure that Benjamin J Harvey's website came up with. So I have to start wondering whether or not merely throwing the department under the bus was the right thing to do.

But it actually gets worse in terms of contempt for business. As we know, there is a fundamental mistake in the RIS in relation to the bargaining tax that medium sized businesses will actually pay. The government has miscalculated it by $5,000. And the bad news is that it isn't $5,000 less; it's not $70,000 that medium businesses will be paying. It actually now goes up to $80,000. Do you know what the relevant minister said in relation to that? On a $5,000 mistake, when it increases the cost for a business from 75 to 80—I kid you not—it is only a 'typo', a mere typo. So all those businesses that have 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 employees, I can tell you, your Christmas present from the left-wing Albanese government is the additional $5,000 that you will have to pay for the pleasure of being compelled to bargain. A bargaining tax of $5,000? I do not know where you are finding this $5,000 with every other cost that is being imposed on you. But the contempt that those opposite have to say that a $5,000 increase is a 'typo'— (Time expired)