Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, I do want in this contribution to talk about the failure of this government to protect the working conditions of Australians, but I might start by dealing with the failure of this government to look after the living standards of small business.

In fact, what we saw today was a remarkable thing. What we saw today, after three weeks of the government misrepresenting the opposition in relation to our position on small business measures, was a government voting against the expedition of the passage of their own bill which introduced small business measures. We have seen this government, for 22 days, suggest we would not be supporting those measures. The fact is: we supported those measures. On budget night, the shadow Treasurer made clear and confirmed that we would be supporting the measures. The Leader of the Opposition on the Thursday night in the budget reply speech confirmed the fact that we were supporting those measures, and yet, despite that, the government continued to argue otherwise. Instead, today, led by the minister for immigration at the table, we saw the government vote against the expedition of that bill.

So you would have to ask the question: is this government fair dinkum when it comes to looking after small business? If they were fair dinkum, they would know that we were always going to support those measures. And the reason we were going to support those measures is: they are our measures. I had the privilege to be the small business minister when the then Treasurer, the member for Lilley, introduced those measures to protect the interests of small business. The instant asset tax write-off was a Labor measure. The loss carry-back initiative, which has not been returned, after being repealed by this government, was also an initiative that helped those incorporated small enterprises through cash-flow issues. The fact is: the instant asset tax write-off is a Labor measure. It was repealed by the Minister for Small Business and this government. It was repealed by this government and re-introduced this week. And they are claiming it as their reform! Well, we know, and two million small businesses, incorporated and unincorporated, around the country know that this was a measure taken away from them by the government and brought back as a supposed Liberal measure. But it is not a Liberal measure. It is not a government measure. It is a Labor measure.

You want to talk about the things we did for small business? Confronted by the global financial crisis, we dealt with the biggest economic shock to this economy for 70 years, and we did it by investing at a time when private capital contracted. And why did we do it? We did it to protect jobs. We did it to protect small business. And what was the response from the then opposition? It was to oppose those measures that supported and protected 200,000 jobs and many, many thousands of small businesses—those small businesses that relied upon those government measures to ensure that they did not hit the wall. But of course, as far as this government is concerned, there was no global financial crisis. That is why we went into deficit: to grow the economy, by more than 10 per cent, post GFC, to ensure that we had low unemployment—the second lowest in the OECD. We went into deficit to save and protect businesses and jobs, and we did, and we came out the other end the best economy in the developed world.

But in just over 12 months we have seen this government double the deficit. And what has happened? They have doubled the deficit and they have increased unemployment. Unemployment is going to hit a 14-year high. Eighty thousand more Australians will be on the unemployment queues. One hundred and thirty extra Australians have been lining up in the unemployment queues each and every day since this government was elected. And that is what is happening here. They have doubled the deficit. Unemployment is rising—the budget's own forecast is that it will rise to 6.5 per cent. So let us be very clear here: this is a government that has really badly affected this economy. And that is of course an attack on small business.

What we have seen since the election of this government is them talking down the economy. Then we saw the introduction of a contractionary budget that actually stopped employers from hiring and stopped consumers from spending, which killed confidence in the economy. Consumer confidence was down. Business confidence was down. That is why unemployment is rising and that is why we have underlying weakness in the economy, and that is as a result of this government. And no efforts by those opposite would actually, I think, contradict the reality that confronts businesses.

So of course we support the measures that are contained in that bill. They are our measures. Of course we support them.

In relation to the tax cut there is a great history too, because we proposed the tax cut for small business in the last term. And what happened? The opposition lined up with the Greens in the Senate and blocked the tax cut for small business in opposition. So it should have been clear from the outset, without us uttering a word, that we were always going to support those measures that were ours. We were going to support them, and support them we did today. Unfortunately, the government voted against the passage of its own bill. That is of course in relation to small business.

But the opposition is concerned about the protection of workers. And if there is ambiguity about what the government think about small business, despite them declaring themselves to be the friends of small business, there is no ambiguity about what they think about the 11 million Australian workers in this country. There is not one area of public policy where they are not trying to hurt Australian workers—not one area of public policy. If they had their way, we know that Work Choices would be back tomorrow. They are not able to do it today, but if they could do it today it would be done. That would be one thing they would do immediately, but at the moment they cannot.

So what do they do? Wherever they go in areas of public policy they attack Australian workers. We saw it with the Treasurer when he goaded Holden to leave and they left our shores. The contempt shown by this government for car-maker workers in this country was an absolute disgrace. We have seen it in terms of the way in which they have not supported workers on ADF contracts in Adelaide and in Melbourne and in other parts of the country. We have even seen it on a personal level, where we had the Prime Minister of this country—when asked a question about whether they would be cutting the rates of pay of cleaners on Commonwealth contracts—say at that dispatch box that they would not be cutting their conditions of employment. Well, what has happened? The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade contracted cleaners have cut the rate of wages for cleaners by up to $6,000 a year. So the Prime Minister should come back into this place and apologise to the cleaners who clean his office and clean the offices of the ministers for saying that their rates of pay would not be cut. Everywhere you look, wherever it is, you will see the government attacking workers.

We are going to hear more from the member for Grayndler, because I can tell you: the policy in the maritime and aviation sectors is deliberately designed to undermine Australian standards of employment. Let there be no mistake about this: they are seeking to undermine the conditions of employment and, indeed, undermine the Australian maritime industry and the aviation industry in this country. We know that wherever they go they are always looking at a way they can undermine the Australian workforce. It is in the budget as well—wherever they go.

We have seen a debate about superannuation in this place recently. Let's be very clear here. Before the election the Prime Minister promised that the co-contribution to 3½ million workers would be maintained. Upon election to government, that co-contribution has been taken away from 3½ million low paid workers. We have also seen it in relation to the delay of the increase in super contribution. Again, this was a commitment made by the Prime Minister, and it is something that has now been taken away by this government. It does not matter where you look in relation to public policy—whether it is abolishing small business measures and then bringing them back as their own, or attacking workers in the car industry, or the maritime industry, or the cleaning contracts for their own cleaning arrangements. It does not matter where you look, this government will attack workers.

Workers in Australia can be assured that we will stand up for them. We will not allow radical industrial relations laws to be reintroduced into this country. We will stand up to prevent penalty rates being abolished and the minimum wage being abolished—the things that this government seeks to do—because Australian Labor not only supports Australian workers in this country, but we will also defend the interests of small business. That is why we want the bill that was introduced today in the House to be passed expeditiously—so those small businesses can get the measures they have sought and that they once had under the Labor government.

See this speech in context