Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023 , and what a bill it is. It's more of a wave of an attack on small business. This is the third wave. The first two have left everyone mortified, with multi-employer bargaining and reckless industrial relations policies at a time when Australia needs stability and Australia needs confidence. We've got an inflation crisis. We've got a cost-of-living crisis. They are the two biggest games in town. Cost of living: every punter, every Australian, out there is paying way too much for their essentials when they go to the store. I'm not an economist, but I know that inflation happens when you've got a lot of money washing around in the economy and not enough goods and services. And what are the government doing? They're putting more money into the economy through subsidies and goodness knows what for energy and other things that they've caused, and they're putting forward policies like this, which are effectively a brake on productivity, on getting more goods into the market. That's what this is: it's a brake on productivity.

There are aspects to this omnibus bill that I do agree with. There are good parts, but, in the usual, tricky Labor Party way, they've snuck them in there. I'm sure they'll use them later on, down the track, and say, 'You didn't vote for this good part of the bill,' and not mention the other, catastrophic parts of the bill that we're voting against.

Voting against this bill is standing up for small business in Wide Bay. There are 26,000 businesses in Wide Bay, and the majority of those are small businesses—mums and dads who have decided to have a go. They've decided to put their assets, their money, their time and their family out in front and take a risk to make a buck. Those small businesses that employ people will absolutely be the victims of this bill. This bill will impose a whole range of new criteria on them. It's just plain unfair. For starters, there's the definition of 'casual'—you can hardly work it out it's so complex. There are about 15 different parts to it. The description says it will come down to a case-by-case basis, for goodness sake! How can you work that out? It's a 'holistic assessment'. It sounds like something that was cooked up in Woodstock. I think some of them might've been on a bit of the stuff they were on in Woodstock when they created this legislation. It's just mindless, and it's being inflicted upon our small businesses.

It's deadset atrocious, and then there's the cost of it! As I said, there's a cost-of-living crisis going on at the moment. Families are kicking off with little kids, trying to get ahead, buying a house, paying school fees—they're all under the pump. This is going to add about $9 billion to the cost of business. That's going to get passed on to those mums and dads, those people that really don't deserve it. It's just shocking. It's typical of the Labor Party. They're all about the ideology. They're all about the experiment. Whether they're reinventing capitalism, or whatever the Treasurer is trying to do, or running a social experiment like the Voice, there is not an experiment they won't try on the Australian people. They look at Australia and see it as a big science lab, not as a country full of people they're meant to be helping. It's: 'Let's give this a go and see what comes out the other side.' It's just disgraceful.

In this bill, as I said, there are a couple of good things. Certainly, the rebuttable presumption in relation to the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act is a good thing. That relates to organisations that deal with that act and first responders who have post-traumatic stress disorder. The presumption is that the workplace has significantly contributed to the PTSD, unless it can be proven otherwise. I see that as a good thing for people who have PTSD, but I also see it as a good thing in that it signals to organisations that they need to look after their workers, otherwise they will face a much tougher test when it comes to court. I'd really like to vote for that, as it's something the coalition supports, but, once again, it is tucked away in this omnibus bill that has had virtually zero consultation. It's been done in a typically sneaky way—a very selective and secretive way. Business groups that were consulted with had secrecy agreements slapped on them. What is this? Is this Russia? Is this China? No. This is Australia in 2023 under a Labor government.

It didn't take them long to show their true colours, I can tell you.

The other aspect of this bill that is a good thing is certainly the protected attribute for family and domestic violence. As a former policeman, I have seen far too much domestic violence and I know the effects that domestic violence can have on people and their lives, just day to day. If it is the case that someone, as a result of family or domestic violence, has had that impact on their workplace, that should never be held against them—it absolutely should never be held against them. Having that as a protected attribute under the antidiscrimination legislation is a good thing, once again, and I would really like to vote for it.

But this bill is full of landmines for our economy; it is legislation that will bring this country to a halt. The only way, obviously, that we're going to be able to fix this is to get rid of this toxic government and vote in a coalition government. So, in conclusion, I'm going to stand up for the small businesses of Wide Bay and say a big no to this toxic bill.

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