Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

It won't work is the real reason, as my colleague here can well attest to. The member for Bendigo quoted the Fair Work Ombudsman as saying, 'We are struggling to see how we can enforce rights in the gig economy.' Obviously, that's just made up. The Fair Work Ombudsman only last week commenced action against foodora, which is a delivery service. This is an area of the gig economy she was waxing lyrical about. It's a pity the member for Chifley's not here, because, in 2015, Ed Husic accused Prime Minister Turnbull of not being nimble and agile. He said:

If start-ups come up with ways to transport people in a better and cheaper way than before then it makes no sense whatsoever for us to be stuck in old world thinking that says you can only use a traditional way to get around …

He thought that we should adopt Uber for the Public Service. The opposition and the Transport Workers Union want to rail against the gig economy, and this is the frustrating thing. The gig economy will be detailed and worked out by the Fair Work Ombudsman and by the Fair Work Commission, as cases are brought to it.

Already, Uber has had a case brought against it in the Fair Work Commission which questioned the nature of the employment, which the member for Bendigo was waxing lyrical about. She demonstrated only one thing: her complete ignorance of Labor's own Fair Work Act, their own Fair Work Commission and their own Fair Work Ombudsman, which I now have the privilege of overseeing, that are doing exactly what it is they were set up to do—that is, define the ongoing as innovation occurs in the employment space.

I note the member for Moreton raised the ABCC in terms of actions, and, in fact, it's completely the opposite to what he stated. In fact, 40 per cent of the cases that the ABCC have on their books are against employers. It isn't the fact that they are out there, day in, day out, bashing unions, and unions only. Again, under the Fair Work Act, the right of entry to a construction site is very clearly defined, and if the union members comply with the act they should be let on. If they're not, they can raise their concerns with the ABCC or the Fair Work Commission. This is how the law is being enforced.

Whilst those opposite want to make thinly veiled attacks on the personal integrity of Fair Work commissioners, as high as the Chief Justice himself, who was put in place by the Labor Party, not by me, I am in the politically ironic position of standing up for the integrity of their laws, their appointments and their system as they take an axe to it. And the only reason they're taking an axe to it—let's be very clear here—is the union business model is broken. There is no value-offering there. That's why they're down to less than 10 per cent of the private sector in employment. 'Change the rules' is about one thing and one thing only: the exploitation of a weak Labor leader, in Bill Shorten, who is completely reliant on union support for his leadership. He has done secret deals with them to ensure that's he's safe so that the member for Grayndler doesn't take him out.

What's going to happen at the end of it? Think of something like industry-wide bargaining. That is seriously being contemplated. We have not seen that in this country since the 1970s, when the rates of industrial disputation ran at 400 times what they do today. These are nut-job left-wing union policies. Sally McManus says it one day and Brendan O'Connor parrots it the next, and within six months it finds its way into the official policy platform of the Labor Party.

We are talking about compulsory casual conversion. How does a business operate when it needs flexibility? When it doesn't know when its trade's coming or whether it's going to rain or shine, and it has to cut its costs to fit, how's it going to do it? It can't. I get on well with the member for Moreton; he's a good mate of mine. I would beg him to go and look inside, to dig for—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

that's the kiss of death, isn't it, Graham!—the actual facts of the matter. (Time expired)

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