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

If I could just remind the House: the question that I asked the minister that resulted in that diatribe was whether she stands by her commitment to Australian businesses that the award modernisation process will not increase labour costs. What happens when you increase labour costs is that you force employers to make a decision. Some businesses might be able to pass on those extra costs to their consumers. Others are going to have to rationalise their workforce. They are going to have to get rid of people whom they have employed because they can no longer afford to employ people after these enormous labour costs are incurred.

It is astonishing to me that the minister classifies the concerns that have been expressed by industries that are facing this particular prospect as ‘supposed concerns’. What is a ‘supposed concern’ about a pharmacist who says they employ four people, but they can now only afford to employ three people because of the minister’s changes? I do style myself as a representative of other people in this debate because I have been out and I have spoken to small businesses that are going to have to get rid of some of their workers. The minister does not understand that that is a very painful process for a small business. If you have four people in your small business, the chances are you are probably like a little family. What the government is going to do is force them, because of their labour cost increases, to get rid of some of that workforce.

What do you make of a government that says that employment is its highest priority when they come into this House and they refuse to look at amendments that will actually save Australian jobs? I think that that response from the Deputy Prime Minister was nothing short of disgraceful. These concerns are real, the results that are going to eventuate from this process are real and the people who are going to be thrown on the dole queue because of the minister’s flawed ideology are also real. If the Deputy Prime Minister refuses to accept amendments that will make sure that employers are not disadvantaged because of these increases in labour costs, has she done any modelling on the likely results of the award modernisation process on the labour market, and if not why not? Why would she not have completed this basic due diligence process for such a major change?

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