Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I am immensely disappointed to hear the Deputy Prime Minister’s attitude in relation to these amendments. The reality is they would have alleviated some of the problems that she has created within this legislation. Of course the most important thing they would do is save jobs. They would stop small businesses from having to close as a result of her award modernisation request.

The minister scoffs at this suggestion, but she does not seem to have any idea what is going to happen once this award modernisation process moves forward. She has no solutions for businesses on how they would implement these increased wages costs, and she does not seem to think that what we are saying about jobs being lost because of this is a credible argument. The reality is she is going to be proved wrong by refusing to look at the sensible amendments that we have proposed to her bill. I have a series of questions for the minister. Firstly, given the attitude that she has just displayed, does the minister stand by her promise that through the award modernisation process no employee will be disadvantaged and that it will not increase cost to business?

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