Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is unacceptable. Even with that small concession that's been made, there is not enough time. What we're talking about is nearly 530 pages, through the explanatory memorandum and then the legislation. How can employers possibly get their heads around all of this?

Senator Gallagher said that it's not possible that we would change our minds. Well, that's not the point. We're trying to change your minds. We're trying to capture the minds and the intent of businesses across this country so that you can actually understand the impact this bill is going to have and make the appropriate decisions in relation to this bill, because we are hearing from employers right across this country that this bill is going to have a chilling effect on employment and on our economy. Productivity is going to drop. It is critical that we allow for proper consideration of this bill.

Let me just bring the senators' minds back to the previous term of government, when we had legislation in relation to industrial relations that went through. We allowed 3½ months for consideration of various legislation in regard to industrial relations. We held a proper inquiry that went across the country and allowed time for us to engage with stakeholders right across the country. We heard from employers, from the trade unions and from other stakeholders who had an interest in and an understanding of the legislation.

With the proper time, you get the ability to engage with stakeholders. I am already about 130 pages through this. It is not about how long it takes me to read a bill; it's about the stakeholders we have got to engage with. They then need to be able to go back to their members, survey their members, understand their members. We're talking about employers here. We're particularly talking about small businesses, who don't have time to go through the complexities of this, so they need the time and ability to engage with their various peak bodies to be able to understand the complexity of this bill so they can put forward their views so it can be considered by this place. For the government to not allow the proper consideration of this bill by this Senate and by the stakeholders that intersect with it is absolutely shameful. I call on my crossbench senators to not pass this amendment to a very sensible proposal by Senator Cash here to allow for this inquiry to go ahead and conclude by February next year.

It's simple. As Senator Cash said, the full implementation of this bill doesn't occur until July, so there's plenty of time for any implementation of whatever is eventually passed by this Senate, by this parliament, to occur before its introduction into practice in the industrial relations system. I mean, we're not actually asking for much. That extra time allows us to have all of the hearings concluded by Christmas and then allowing that period for the report to be presented. We give time for the secretariat to do their job.

The last bill, the Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill you put forward, you only allowed 21 days. In fact, the committee was having hearings while submitters were still putting their submissions in. The secretariat had less than 24 hours to turn around a report. That was obviously ridiculous. While the late-November report won't allow for that sort of ridiculous time frame, it is still nonetheless not satisfactory that the proper time and consideration are given for this very important legislation.

I want to finish on this point: this inquiry must go to Western Australia. The hearings must be held in Western Australia because we know, and we're hearing it from the resource industry, that this bill has a disproportionate impact on Western Australian businesses, in particular in the resource sector. It has a disproportionate impact on them, particularly the fact that we're bringing in labour hire and also services companies. There's no definition on what 'labour hire' actually means. It means any business, any person providing a service into a workplace. It's unacceptable. It must go to Perth. The time to take us through to February allows us to be able to do that, to get across the country and make sure that stakeholders are able to— (Time expired)