Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I began my career as a builder, but in the 16 years before my election to this place I was a barrister. There is one very important principle that you learn when you practice law. That is the independence of the judiciary. The value of a court or arbitrator is that they can act independently. Where there are important questions to be decided and there are strong views on both sides, an independent umpire can weigh the evidence and make a decision without fear or favour. That is why the opposition leader set up the Fair Work Commission review into penalty rates. But now he presents us with this bill to consider. How his tune has changed.

The explanatory memorandum to this bill contains the sort of Orwellian double-think that only this Labor Party under this leader are capable of in modern politics—a Labor Party that is not a shadow of the party it was under prime ministers Hawke and Keating. The explanatory memorandum claims, seemingly with a rhetorical straight face: 'The bill preserves the independence of the Fair Work Commission.' Independence? Not only is it a bill that dictates to the Fair Work Commission what it can and cannot decide and that tells the Fair Work Commission that it can do whatever it wants as long as it is exactly what the Labor Party tells it to do; it is a bill that retrospectively reverses a decision the commission has already independently made. The blinding hypocrisy of the provisions contained in this bill is only matched by that of its mastermind proponent.

I do not know why I am even surprised. This is exactly the kind of top-down, nanny-knows-best world that the Labor Party are desperate to create: a Human Rights Commission that tells us exactly what to think and what to say, a workplace relations system where the only voice to be heard and dictated by is the CFMEU's and a Fair Work Commission that is legally obliged to agree with the Labor Party. That is the future that would face us if Labor were in government.

I believe that this bill contains at its heart a contradiction just as fundamental as the contradiction inherent in preserving an authority's independence by shackling it to Labor Party ideology. The new clause 135A prohibits any modern award which would be likely to reduce the take-home pay of any employee covered by the award and retrospectively annuls any decision after 22 February that would have the same effect. I have spoken to a great many business owners in my electorate, in Caloundra, Mooloolaba, Maleny and throughout the Fisher electorate, and they all tell me the same thing—that is, the cripplingly high penalty rates they are required to pay on Sundays and public holidays prevent them from opening, limit the staff they can employ and reduce the hours they can offer. They tell me that without these penalty rates they could offer more work to local people and would do so with great enthusiasm. So what would the effect of the new clause 135A be? It would be to prevent employees under an award being offered more hours and therefore more take-home pay. It would prevent unemployed Australians from becoming employees under the award and getting any pay at all. The effect of this clause would be to limit the income and opportunities available to potentially millions of Australians.

Why would the Labor Party want to keep small businesses closed on a Sunday? My colleagues in the House and in another place have given us the abundant evidence that makes the answer clear. It is because their union mates want to be able to go on handing big business a competitive advantage by giving away their workers' penalty rates while potential competitors have to pay more. With small businesses shackled, the unions can preserve their membership, grow their income and maintain their own power base. This bill, just like another well-known Bill, tells Australians to their faces that it will stand up for their pay and then gets stuck into selling them out to preserve union power. It is an absolute disgrace.

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