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

Once again the Deputy Prime Minister does not have any answers to these sensible questions. You would think when you are making major changes to the industrial relations system you might actually ask the question, ‘What is this going to do to people’s jobs prospects?’ If the Deputy Prime Minister does not think this is a problem, she ought to get out more and actually talk to some small businesses. She ought to get out and talk to some large businesses.

What does she think is going to happen when you massively increase the cost of running a business? What is the logical result of that? Overnight, you come in and you say, ‘Your wage bill is going to go up by 15 per cent or 20 per cent.’ What does she think that small business is going to have to do to survive, if it can possibly survive at all? This is the ludicrous thing about these amendments. This is the ludicrous thing about what this government is proposing. They do not have any answers at all for what people are going to do once their cost base is massively increased, in some cases from 1 January next year. I would be interested to know what the Deputy Prime Minister would say to a small business that is faced with this massive increase in its cost base, and what she thinks will actually be the likely result of massive increases in labour costs in some sectors in some particular states? What does she think those businesses are going to do?

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