Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Small Business Redundancy Exemption) Bill 2023 being called on immediately, and debate on the question that the amendment moved by the Manager of Opposition Business, that the bill be considered immediately, continuing.

What we have seen today is repeated attempts by this government to avoid dealing with bills that have come from the Senate. We have four bills that have come from the Senate. The first of these was the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Small Business Redundancy Exemption) Bill 2023. The opposition believes that this bill ought to be brought on immediately so that it can be debated as quickly as possible and voted upon. The reason we believe that this is necessary is that the matters within this bill are matters that are not contentious. They are agreed. They're certainly supported by the government, as is evident from the fact that they're included in the governments so-called closing loopholes bill. They are supported by the opposition. They are supported, I'm advised, by many of the crossbench, and, of course, they were supported by the Senate, which has moved and passed this bill. There is an opportunity before this House to proceed, bring this matter forward and vote upon it. That is what the opposition believes ought to happen.

We believe that ought to happen for all of the reasons that have been argued by the Leader of the House and by Labor members in various speeches within this place and externally when they've spoken about the importance of this legislation, the small business redundancy exemption bill. We've seen repeated attempts by this government and by the Leader of the House to avoid this House dealing with these bills. We've had a host of explanations from him as to why it's not his responsibility and why he shouldn't have put his hand on the tiller to move that the House deal with this bill. These are matters which could be and should be dealt with by this House immediately. That would be entirely consistent with the bills passed by the Senate, and it would be consistent with what I'd suggest Australians expect people in this House to do where there is agreement between the government, the opposition and crossbenchers—in this case on matters dealing with the circumstances of employees of historically large businesses which by reason of insolvency, under effectively a technical provision as it exists today, fall within the scope of the small business redundancy arrangements. Presently the position under the law is that employers in those circumstances are able to take advantage of a provision which deals with redundancy for employees of smaller businesses. I think it is widely accepted across the parliament that this is a technicality. I think it is widely accepted across the parliament that this is a provision or this is a circumstance in which the ordinary redundancy provisions ought to apply and the small business redundancy exemption, which is there for a particular set of circumstances, ought not to apply.

The critical thing is we could move to deal with this now, and that is what the opposition is seeking to do. We've been given an opportunity by the Senate in relation to this set of bills that have come across to the House. It's transparently and abundantly clear the government does not want to consider these matters quickly. But it is the opposition's view and, as I understand is evident from voting patterns, the view of a number of the crossbenchers as well that this matter should be dealt with quickly, and we have an opportunity to do that. Indeed we believe on the side of the chamber we have a responsibility to act quickly. For these reasons the opposition is moving this suspension of standing orders motion, just as we moved a series of other motions.

We believe the appropriate act for the House would be to support this motion so we can suspend standing orders and resume debate on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Small Business Redundancy Exemption) Bill 2023. We can bring that on immediately, and we can vote on that immediately, before Christmas—for people employed who, as the law presently stands, face the risk that, due to circumstances outside of their control, where they would ordinarily have available redundancy provisions in the general industrial relations legislation, those provisions would not apply, because of the very technical operation of the small business exemption. It's widely accepted that exemption ought not to operate in the specific circumstances where a historically large business, where the normal redundancy provisions would apply, has managed to fall under the small business provisions by virtue of insolvency, so we can act now to deliver that greater certainty to employees around Australia. The government has completely failed to explain why it doesn't want to bring this on now, and this is a chance for the government to do this. It's a chance for the parliament to legislate in a way the Senate already has legislated, to pass this bill, therefore I commend this motion to the House.

See this speech in context