Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I am saying there is no link. The terms and conditions for employees are set by enterprise agreements, bargained under the Fair Work Australia system—the system that your side of politics devised—and negotiated by the union movement, which your side of politics has links to. Simply because event A occurs before event B does not mean event A causes event B. And when you look at the Clean Event example, what was it that caused the employees in the Clean Event EA to receive a less favourable outcome than in their previous EA? It was the way in which that EA was negotiated by the now Leader of the Opposition. It is fascinating because when you look at that process, everything turns on the enterprise agreement—signed by the now Leader of the Opposition. It is a document for Clean Event employees that benefits the employer and disadvantages the workers.

What was it that caused that outcome? Was it a deregulatory agenda? Was it a failure to properly negotiate with the employers? Was it some form of ancillary advantage that was seen as more important, like joining people up to a union? Very interestingly, you can print out the examples, and I advise you to do it, about how that particular EBA worked. Interestingly, the total award rate, had it been negotiated under the award, would have been $673.46, but the multi-hiring clause under the EBA that was negotiated ultimately by the now Leader of the Opposition produced a rate result of $586.32, which has put those workers in a significantly poorer position than they were in previously.

That was a result that came from the negotiation of the EBA under the Fair Work Act system, the system that the Labor Party put in place when in government. The contract was negotiated by the now Leader of the Opposition. In fact, the result was this: many of the Clean Event workers would have been better off staying on the minimum wage and receiving penalties as prescribed under their award rather than working under the now Leader of the Opposition's enterprise bargaining agreement that he negotiated on their behalf. The outcome of an EBA is determined by the negotiation of the EBA and the terms of the EBA. Trying to link that to the deregulator agenda is simply, completely, to misunderstand the causal nature of what produces outcomes in the EBA process.

Returning to the government's deregulatory agenda as a whole, what we have managed to do is enact decisions which, when fully implemented, will reduce compliance costs in the Australian economy by $2.45 billion. And, yes, inside that agenda there is a range of rather mundane cleaning-up of legislation, which has gone undone for too long, but also some incredibly substantive matters. Those will continue with the money that this budget has provided to the Digital Transformation Office. The interface with government will become clearer and crisper for people, whether they are undertaking tender and procurement processes, or whether or not they are going through Centrelink application processes. What we have done is a thorough top to bottom analysis of where regulatory costs are imposed in the economy, and we are tackling them all—both big and small.

When you look at some of the fantastic things that have happened here, and in this recent budget particularly, they have gone directly to organisations such as small business. Fringe benefits tax can now be claimed on two devices even if they have an overlapping functionality, like an iPhone or an iPad—a very significant benefit for business.

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