Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the amendment by the Manager of Opposition Business. I see the minister opposite in the House. It's pleasing to see that the minister has stayed in for the duration of this debate, so I thank him for that.

I think this motion is a good test for the government. We have seen the crossbench and the coalition support the private senators' motion by Senators Pocock and Lambie in the Senate last week to split out the noncontentious components of an omnibus bill which has plenty in it that scares many in the business community. I think it's incumbent on us in this place, as I think the member for Warringah outlined in her contribution, to work together and identify those bits, in a very, very large and ominous piece of legislation, that have support in our community.

This particular portion of the bill, the small business redundancy exemption portion, is exactly the piece of legislation that we, right across this chamber, should agree on and support, given that those opposite, as other contributions to this debate have outlined, are supposedly the party for the worker. This particular piece of the omnibus bill seeks to prevent large businesses from using entering administration to avoid paying redundancy payments to their employees. I don't see any reason why the government would oppose this private senators' motion and not support it, given that their stated aim is to represent employees right across our great country.

On that basis, I support the amendment by the Manager of Opposition Business to bring this particular bill on for debate immediately, because we've heard those opposite, in various comments, outline numerous times how important it is that this legislation get through this parliament. Here is an opportunity for the parliament to work on a bipartisan basis to support a key piece of the legislation, to ensure that one of those loopholes that this bill is supposedly seeking to close is closed. The coalition stands here fully in support of achieving that objective.

As we look at the importance of this piece of the bill, we know that we have seen, as the member for Fisher has rightly pointed out, large businesses enter into administration in the building industry. I saw that with my father, who was a ceramic tiler, over many years. It's not the first time it's happened. It's not the contractors of these businesses who'll miss out—well, they will miss out by these businesses going into administration, but, importantly, this piece of legislation refers to the employees in those businesses who might miss out on their redundancy entitlements as a result of that business entering into administration.

It's not just in the building sector we see this; we see it across other parts of the economy as well. We see medium to large businesses, that are presently not classified as small businesses, enter into administration and fall below that threshold and then use those provisions to avoid paying their due entitlement. It's one of the bits of the legislation that closes a good loophole to close. I would ask the government, in the spirit of bipartisanship—and the manager of government business frequently says that we are the 'no-alition'. Well, we're being the 'yes-alition' in this case, supporting a piece of government legislation to get it through the House and protect the—

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