Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the member for Bass's concerns about poverty in this nation—something every single one of us in this parliament is concerned about. Firstly, we in this nation should be very proud of the strong social safety net that we have. Our welfare bill is currently around $160 billion a year—quite a substantial sum. In fact, one-third of all government revenue goes into that welfare section. Unfortunately, when it comes to poverty, although the Labor Party like to talk about it, the policy prescriptions that they push will actually cause greater poverty. We saw that from the member for Bass's speech.

He spoke about penalty rates. I am glad this penalty rate decision was made, because it exposes some of the misleading statements that have been perpetuated by members of the Labor Party. Firstly, the penalty rate decision does not apply to emergency services workers. It does not apply to public servants. It does not apply to our nurses. They are the groups that for the last couple of years the Labor Party have been scaring, telling them that their penalty rates were under threat when they never, ever were.

When it comes to the hospitality industry, it does not affect any workers from Woolworths or workers from Coles, as the Labor Party found out when they rustled up some poor young chap and had him in there, making a fool of himself, embarrassing the Leader of the Opposition and claiming that his penalty rates were going to be cut when that was utterly false because he was an employee of Coles and the employees of the big supermarket and other retail chains are not touched.

When it comes to penalty rates, we should also remember it was a decision made by the Fair Work Commission. And who set up the Fair Work Commission? The Labor Party. And who selected the commissioner? The Labor Party. And what was the commissioner's background? That of a trade union official. He looked at all the evidence and it was his decision that there would be more jobs created, more opportunities and more chance for people to lift themselves out of poverty—by having a job—if that change was made.

Secondly, when it comes to penalty rates, it is simply incorrect for the Labor Party to run around saying that people's wages are going to be cut. There is no compulsion on small businesses to cut the penalty rate—

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