James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

STEVENS () (): I too rise to speak in favour of the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business, to bring on debate immediately on this great opportunity that the parliament has to make an important change, an important reform, by passing the bill which has come back to us from the Senate. If we do pass this motion, and if we do bring on debate immediately, then it's an opportunity for everyone in this chamber to support an important improvement, an enhancement, to the situation of working people in this country. If you're a member of the Labor Party, I would have thought you would welcome the opportunity, particularly if you'd served in this chamber, to vote in favour of legislation—and therefore to vote for this motion to do it immediately—that will create an enhanced entitlement to workers in Australia. That is, after all, what the Labor Party is purportedly all about. We have a situation where, here on the opposition benches, we, indeed, are encouraging a government that is of a party named 'the Labor Party' to take our opportunity by supporting this motion and bringing on debate immediately to do something for working people.

What's even more significant is that, if we pass this motion and bring on debate now, we will, indeed, be passing a piece of legislation—we can do it today—that the government has already indicated to be a reform that they support. They have it in another piece of legislation that is still in the Senate. I commend the point made by the Manager of Opposition Business when he anticipated potential arguments for not supporting this motion and not bringing on debate and the passage of this legislation, which has already passed through the Senate, on the basis that the provisions in this legislation are contained in a government bill in the Senate. I think the Senate is well aware of that. I think the Senate, when they passed this bill, did so on the basis that, maybe, the other bill that contains this entitlement enhancement for workers would not be coming back to our chamber any time soon.

I would venture why the Senate has seen fit to send us this bill. There are some other bills that will be communicated to us—I anticipate, after we, hopefully, deal with this bill and pass it through this parliament—that are in the same category. They involve issues that are the subject of unanimity in the Senate and this chamber. They are reforms that we can all support, as has been pointed out by other contributors in this debate—that is, the major stakeholders that have been consulted, whether that be on the employee side, the trade union movement side or the employer side. Business groups have welcomed these sorts of reforms. We, in the opposition, are very interested and eager to support some elements of these reforms, which are the ones that are being transmitted back to us from the Senate. By supporting the motion that's before us right now, we can pass this new entitlement to Australian workers immediately.

It's very important that this procedural motion is well understood by every member if this does need to go to a division. It probably won't need to, because the workers' party will of course support bringing on a vote to create an enhanced entitlement for Australian workers, and we, through our contributions on this side of the chamber, have indicated that we are very eager to bring on consideration of this bill so that we can support this bill.

I would anticipate that if you're in the Labor Party, if you're from a workers' party, you'll vote for workers' rights. Those who sometimes uncharitably cast aspersions on those of us on the coalition benches about our attitude towards supporting working people are saying that we are eager to support this entitlement for workers. We're so eager we want to bring on the opportunity immediately, which is what this motion calls for.

So I hope we don't need to divide, but, if we do, the very important point is that this question is to bring on an opportunity to immediately pass this through the parliament. This is a bill that's gone through the Senate. If we pass it unamended through the House of Representatives then we can immediately have the parliament create this enhanced entitlement for working Australians. If we divide on this, that means that anyone that votes against it does not want this chamber to take the opportunity to immediately do that. That will be the consequence of anyone not supporting this motion.

There have yet to be speakers against the motion. Hopefully it is the case that this parliament will welcome the opportunity to immediately address this important reform. It is one that the government say they want to legislate. They have it in a bill that's already been through this chamber and is now sitting in the Senate. The Senate has sent this specific legislative instrument back to us and said, 'When it comes to this particular principle around redundancy entitlements, let's get on with this. We may or may not be happy with some of the things in another bill that's already been through the House and is in the Senate.' That's a matter for the Senate and nothing to do with us. But I take the hint from the Senate that they're sending this bill to us so that we can get on with the opportunity of legislating this important change to improve entitlements for workers that would be impacted from redundancies under the small-business trigger—one that's got complete support.

So I urge the chamber to support this opportunity by voting for this motion to bring on debate. If there are members that don't like this reform then they shouldn't be frightened of having a debate and making those arguments in the chamber, which we can do forthwith. But we have an opportunity to vote to bring this forward. I urge the chamber to support that opportunity.

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