Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I got through my Weeties—and one of its articles said: ‘Retail sector fears Labor’s AWA rollback’. I thought to myself: what does this mean? It went on to say:

State Retailers Association chief executive John Brownsea said … Businesses put a lot of time and money into establishing AWAs so to have them scrapped would be costly.

The article continues:

Information and Communication Technology Council of SA chairman Dean Littlefield said many of the state’s 1200 IT companies were small and needed flexibility in their employment contracts to remain profitable.

In the article, he is quoted as saying:

Unless flexibility is included in any approach to IR laws for small to medium businesses then there’s going to be real concerns that we will be priced out of the market.

They will be priced out of the market by the Labor Party’s industrial relations plan. The medical industry said in the foreseeable future AWAs could be a ‘useful way of attracting people to the industry’ and easing the doctor shortage. That is from the AMA. In relation to the hairdressing industry, Hair Machine managing director Vincent Renaldo said the Labor Party policy ‘would take away the choices of small businesses employing small numbers of staff and make employers uneasy about hiring’—like hiring young Australians who have never had a job and hiring women who have been out of the workforce. That is what the Labor Party wants to destroy. The restaurant and catering industry said that it will have a ‘huge impact on 35 to 40 per cent of restaurants which use AWAs’. The Labor Party policy will mean ‘lost money and productivity’. The road transport industry said: ‘Many companies across the road transport industry use AWAs. Abolishing AWAs could have a big impact on the industry.’

The Labor Party is a major threat to the Australian economy. The Labor Party is a major threat to jobs. The Labor party is happy to see people on lower wages. The Labor Party is happy to see people unemployed. And the Labor Party wants to see more strike action because that is what the union bosses want. That is bad for Australian workers and that is bad for the Australian economy.

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