John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I am not personally aware of the circumstances of that, but it is the case that the unfair dismissal laws have been changed and that they no longer apply to firms that employ fewer than 100 people. The government has not endeavoured at any time to disguise that fact. The view is taken by this government that, whilst laws relating to unlawful termination should be maintained—and I will come to that in a moment by way of supplementing, if I may, an earlier answer I gave in response to a question asked by the Leader of the Opposition—it is in the interests of flexibility and greater employment in this country that the unfair dismissal laws should no longer apply to firms employing fewer than 100 people, and we have never made any secret of that fact. In fact, at the last election when we talked about unfair dismissal laws we did not put any statistical limit on the change we had in mind. But earlier in question time I was asked a question by the Leader of the Opposition. I think it was about a lady by the name of Karen Palmer, a machine operator at Greer Industries.

See this speech in context