Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

As I was saying, there are 10,341 small businesses in the electorate of Bass. Of these, the biggest industries are construction, agriculture—which the member for Bass knows extremely well—forestry and fishing. When it comes to small business, the Morrison government want to back small business. We're cutting taxes for small business, we're removing red tape for small business and we're opening up new trade opportunities for small business.

The other thing we're doing is protecting small business from union militancy, despite Labor fighting us every step of the way. Look at our record: we established the Australian Building and Construction Commission, a tough cop on the beat to ensure the rule of law applies on Australian building sites. This is in stark contrast to the Labor Party and their extensive history of backing the CFMMEU and their law-breaking activity. Labor want us to return to chaos by abolishing the ABCC.

We set up the Registered Organisations Commission to ensure that employee and employer organisations do the right thing by their members. We passed the corrupting benefits legislation, which again was opposed by Labor. It banned dodgy payments between registered organisation representatives and those they were bargaining with. We abolished the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which saved 35,000 small businesses. It was opposed by those opposite. And let's not forget that those small businesses employ seven million hardworking Australians. We're on their side.

But the question is: what is the position of the Leader of the Opposition? How does the Leader of the Opposition explain supporting the expulsion of Mr Setka from the Labor Party but not supporting legislation that would, if Mr Setka continued his unlawful behaviour, see him being expelled from his position as a union official? That is the question that this question time needs an answer to, and it would be very good if the Leader of the Opposition went outside and answered that question. That is the question you need to answer.

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