Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today, in this debate on the private member’s motion on the Work Choices legislation, to speak on behalf of the employers, not only in the Riverina but right across Australia. Currently in the Riverina we are facing the worst drought we have ever faced. Business is in decline. My issue is that employers are keeping the staff on. To keep their staff on they are using up their resources from their good times—meaning from when their businesses made a profit. Profit can be a dirty word in the eyes of many in the opposition.

We hear in the House today about rural families doing it tough. That is exactly correct, but of the many people who are doing it tough most are employers in rural and regional Australia. I do not think anyone in the Riverina could deny that the majority of employers have a good relationship with their employees and that these business owner-operators value their employees’ service. Most of my Riverina businesses consistently put their employees’ needs high on their personal agenda as they currently stand with this encroaching devastating drought. That is simply because they know that their business is reliant on good staff, and they certainly do not want to lose good staff, even if they have to utilise their own resources in the times when the money is not coming through their front doors.

On the reverse side, most employees in my electorate of Riverina recognise that they would not have a job if it were not for the personal commitment of their employers. Most of the employees are very appreciative of that fact—not that you would hear that from opposition members. Employers deserve a fair go in this debate on the Work Choices industrial relations changes. I do not think they have had a fair go since the introduction of Work Choices. Most employers have done nothing wrong—they may never do anything wrong—but they are maligned and defamed every day in the media and in this House. Most employers work hard right alongside their employees. They put their homes—their assets—on the line every day to meet the running costs of their businesses. The running costs of a business include the employees’ wages and conditions, including superannuation, and a whole host of training and personal development. There is little or no recognition of this in the debates and propaganda that we witness on a day-to-day basis in the news on industrial relations.

I am embarrassed for employers. They deserve some consideration in this debate, but they get very little, except when something pops up out of the blue and then all employers have the same stone cast against them. What if that were to happen to employees? Of course you will get a bad employer, but for every bad employer you will get an equally bad employee. How do employees feel when they are all cast as the same sort of—bad—employee? They are certainly not all the same. In my electorate employment opportunities with local firms have been presented to people. It is time for us to recognise the value of both the business owner-operator—

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