John McVeigh (Groom, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition leader himself set the rules for this inquiry and appointed the umpire. He repeatedly said he would respect that umpire's decision. Just like the Reserve Bank, in making decisions about interest rates, has removed any suggestion of political interference, so it is the case with the Fair Work Commission. It has spent many years studying the evidence—many submissions, many witnesses—and it has considered the views of unions and employer organisations alike, along with many experts as well. It was set up by the Gillard government in 2009. It was tasked in 2013 by Labor to review all awards every four years. And it was the opposition leader himself, as the workplace relations minister in 2013, who amended the Fair Work Act to specifically require the commission to consider penalty rates as part of that process. He said he would abide by the independent umpire—the umpire that he set up. Further, when he was leader of the AWU, the opposition leader in fact—as the member for Hughes has quite rightly reflected—removed penalty rates for some other of Australia's lowest paid workers.

In our electorate of Groom, this is fundamentally about small businesses. In my community they are the engine of our economy. They are family businesses—I am talking about the Cooreys, the Betroses, the Hannas, the Fitzgibbons—who provide retail and hospitality and other services to our community, and they have done so for decades and decades, generation after generation.

Upon hearing of the Fair Work Commission's decision, the chamber of commerce president in Toowoomba, in my electorate of Groom, Joy Mingay, provided some fairly significant feedback. She said a large shopping centre manager said to her it would have no impact on the employees of their tenants in that centre, because they had already had their penalty rates traded away by the union movement. She said others provided advice that it would help them restart businesses—popular family businesses that can now look at opening on Sundays and employing new employees, particularly students from the University of Southern Queensland who are so dependent on casual employment. There is the pub and hospitality operator who said there would be no difference to them whatsoever, and that they will continue to pay their staff the same rates, because the minimum rate set by the Fair Work Commission would not mean much difference to their business at all. Others recognise as well that it is a minimum and, for them, it will not change. Changed shopping patterns of modern day Australians—as members of the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce and other local organisations have noted—mean that it is a seven-day-a-week cycle.

I have noted Senator Claire Moore, based in Brisbane, making commentary about small business in Toowoomba. She is a fly-in fly-out senator to our city—sure, she has Toowoomba roots, such as I do—but I am concerned that she must not be touching base with small business in my city, because that is what they are saying. They are saying they recognise this as an independent decision. They recognise that they are the engine room of our economy, and the decision of the Fair Work Commission—as originally established by the Labor Party—now means that they can provide more jobs and more opportunities, and provide the benefits to our community that the Fair Work Commission itself recognised would flow.

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