Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the amendment of the Manager of Opposition Business. The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, after listening to us, might decide that what we're doing here is a measure of goodwill. We are here trying to help the government today, we are here agreeing with the government today and we are here to help the government this afternoon because, from what the Manager of Opposition Business has just explained, there is obviously a more complex piece of legislation, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, that is being held up in the Senate. It's going to be so for many months. It won't be coming back to this chamber until next year.

But the Senate, in its wisdom, has decided to pass certain subsets of the closing loopholes legislation with which we on the opposition benches agree. As a goodwill gesture when this subset of the legislation went through, many ministers and many members opposite spoke very passionately about this part of it, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Small Business Redundancy Exemption) Bill 2023. They also spoke about the urgency of it and that it was really important that it happen ASAP. It wasn't just that this had to go through; it had to happen with great urgency. So we are here to help this amendment go through today—not today, this afternoon.

Let's just remind the House of what this is about. This is about the fact that employees should not miss out on redundancy payments because their employer has gone bankrupt or become insolvent. Who could disagree with that? Is that the fault of the employee? No, it's not the fault of the employee. The government knows that. The opposition knows that. If this procedural motion goes through, we can make sure that those employees are looked after almost immediately.

The Manager of Opposition Business also mentioned that small business advocates and just about every advocacy group around the country supports this. We support it. The government supports it. This can happen today. So I'm very optimistically standing here today. I know the minister is very passionate about all parts of the legislation that he moved previously with the closing loopholes legislation, and I know he's as passionate about this part of it as he is about all other parts of it, so I think he's disappointed that the closing loopholes legislation won't be coming back from the Senate for quite some time. Given his passion for the issue, I understand his disappointment about that, but the good news is that we can do this right now. Maybe he hadn't thought about it, so I commend the Manager of Opposition Business for moving this procedural motion so that we can move on this today. I'm excited, the members of the opposition are excited and the government is excited, so I support and second this motion.

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