Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023. Longman is an electorate where university degrees are obtained by less than 10 per cent of the population. Most employers, including myself, have a work history where they have started work at the bottom and worked their way up the ladder, finally taking the plunge into small-business ownership. This pathway gives these individuals a unique lived experience of what I would call an all-round perspective, as we have been both an employee and an employer.

I'm one of the few members in this House that left school in grade 10 at 15 years old and started work full-time on a minimum wage. I continued to work full-time on a minimum wage in two of the lowest paid sectors, in labouring and retail, until I was 19. In that time I also met and moved in with a single mum, who at the time had an 18-month-old daughter when I was just 18 years old myself, effectively becoming a single income family on a minimum wage overnight. Over the next five years I received various promotions, eventually becoming a retail manager at age 23 and finally owning my first retail business at age 33.

I explain this to my community so that my constituents understand that, if they are on a minimum wage, I get the struggle because I have lived it. I know what it's like to have Vegemite toast for dinner and to shop at op shops for clothes. It's tough.

Like many on low wages, I was told by co-workers that the Labour Party was the party for people like me on low wages and they had my back. Fortunately, I had good, sensible mentors around me who gave me a different understanding of this way of thinking. I want to state, as an employer for over 20 years and having many contacts with small-business owners, that it's the desire of every employer that their staff members earn as much as possible without sending their business broke. Your staff are your greatest asset and, as such, small-business owners do all they can to retain employees as staff recruitment for small business is an arduous and expensive task.

The problem of course is that Labor are very short on people who have experience in running a small business but lots of members with union experience, so they have a very one-sided view on how the employer/employee relationship should operate. Unfortunately, their ammo is simply to create headlines that appeal to workers and on the surface appear to benefit them but in reality actually hurt them.

I learned very quickly in small business that once you have signed your lease the rent cost is fixed. You cannot control your insurance, WorkCover, electricity, telecommunications and all other costs because they are what they are, with one exception—wages. Wages are the one cost you have control over. I'm not talking about the pay rates that workers receive. The Fair Work Commission determines the minimum wage, and you must pay above that. You have to do it by rostering and how many hours you employ people. So, when Labor try and keep up this myth that they are for the worker, they will implement policies just like the one we are debating today, but we should look at what this will mean in reality. They are proposing that if a casual has been employed on a consistent roster for six months they can be made permanent part-time.

On the surface that sounds good. However, let's look at it from an employer's and an employee's point of view. I've spoken to various employers and employees about how they feel about this, and they don't want it. They don't want it because they like the flexibility of casuals in industries like the one I've been in—retail. You can have a casual that works the same hours for nine months of the year and then, come Christmastime or when a full-time employee goes on leave, they will pick up some extra work during these periods. If things suddenly get tough, like when COVID first hit, employers have the ability to reduce those hours. As tough a decision as that is, it's better than going broke and everyone losing their jobs.

What some employers are telling me is that they will be forced to adapt and reduce hours for casuals or change casuals' rostered days some weeks so the hours vary and they won't be able to go to this permanent part-time classification anyway. This will be another task small-business owners don't need to be lumbered with, and it actually hurts the very person it's designed to help—the worker. For example, Mary, a worker who's been happily working three shifts on a Monday, Tuesday and Saturday, seven hours a day, all of a sudden now will be working Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday every three weeks with five-hour shifts so this ridiculous legislation can't be enacted. Unfortunately, Mary and her employer had agreed on their previous agreement. She has to pick up her kids from school on Wednesday and Thursday, which she will no longer be able to do on this new roster, so both Mary and her employer miss out. The crazy thing is that it looks like Labor might be getting an understanding of this and may amend their own bill to change this, but one can only hope.

Another issue is that, whether we like it or not, we compete in the global market. I grew up in a country where we had a lot of sovereign manufacturing. Ford and Holden cars were made here. When I was in the electrical appliance industry, most things were made here. Everything from Malley's Whirlpool washers, Kelvinator fridges and Victa mowers to Sunbeam frypans were proudly made in Australia. Over 20 years I watched with sadness and dismay as these industries slowly disappeared. There are images of 300 workers now without a job outside the Westinghouse factory in Orange in New South Wales. Some had worked there for over 20 years.

Why did these businesses shut? Put simply, it was a commercial decision as Australia became a country too expensive and too hard to manufacture in due to arduous bills just like this one. These very workers that various Labor governments and their union masters said they were fighting so hard for now have no jobs. The reality is that these companies have shareholders to answer to. They're a business, not a charity, who want a return on their investment and need to be profitable to survive. It's just like when we go to make a purchase ourselves: we look at the price, how easy the seller is to deal with and how simple it will be. If it's too hard or too expensive then we simply take our business elsewhere. This is no different when businesses look at which country to establish themselves in. Sadly, Australia is not in the mix for many of these companies, as we're simply too expensive and there's too much expensive compliance. So, again, rules and regulations meant to help workers actually hurt them.

I also want to touch on gig economy workers and independent contractors. Again, I understand the headline being about standing up for gig workers—but let's look at what will actually happen in reality, because that's what matters. When I talk to gig workers, like the people who deliver for companies like Uber eats and DoorDash, the workers tell me they love the flexibility of getting notification of a job and having the ability to accept that job or refuse it. The decision is theirs. They're concerned that by making minimum three-hour shifts a mandatory thing they won't be able to take that 20-minute job as it won't make the three-hour minimum. So instead of receiving some pay they get no pay. It's another example of a headline that intimates that it's for the workers but, again, it will actually hurt workers. The minister has also admitted that this legislation will drive up prices for employers, which will in turn drive up prices for consumers at a time when the cost of living is out of control. So the employer, the employee and the customer are all worse off. We would expect there would be at least one winner, wouldn't we?

My electorate of Longman is one of the fastest growing in the country. As such, many people earn their living in the construction industry and, accordingly, there are many private contractors. These contractors love the flexibility that being self-employed gives them. Again, Labor despises this as they're small-business owners and, therefore, have no union membership. So they're trying to introduce legislation to reinstate them as employers. They're trying to take away the fairness that's currently in place where the husband or the wife works out in the field as a tradie and the other one does the books. They split their income and, therefore, reduce their tax bill, which is only right. Compare that to the scenario under this legislation—one party is out of work and the other one is earning a higher wage and paying more tax individually. This means that the gross household income goes down, they pay more tax and, therefore, the real, or net, wage after tax—which is all people care about, by the way—is drastically reduced. The flexibility of being a small-business owner—you can choose to take time off for a long weekend or go to your child's sports carnival because you're self-employed—is also gone, as they'll now be an employee subject to the demands and rules of their employer. I thought Labor wanted more flexible working conditions. As usual, their actions don't line up with their words.

Why does this Labor government behave in this manner? They despise the flexibility small businesses have as they are currently very hard to unionise. We know their main underlying ideology is to unionise all workforces. So every decision is based on this outcome in some way, regardless of what the headline says. Why would they want this? Because unions are the major funders of their election campaigns—in fact, $100 million over the past 10 years. That is $100 million of workers' money. It's not the unions' money; it's the workers' money. Labor's policies never have and never will have anything to do with workers. By making it harder and harder for small businesses, contractors and labour hire companies, they are trying to close these businesses so more and more people will be driven to employment with large corporates, which are much easier to unionise.

Australians want more flexibility and freedom to make choices when it comes to their employment. My experience both as an employee and as an employer has shown me that, when governments stay out of it and let employees and employers get on with it, business flourishes. Conversely, the more government interference there is the more everyone loses. Of course, workers should not be exploited, and they have avenues to take their grievances, should they arise, which is only right. But let me contend that a business that exploits its workers and doesn't value them will not be a business that will be around for long.

Labor need to stop creating laws that are designed for less than one per cent of employers who do the wrong thing and penalise the 99 per cent that are doing the right thing. Creating more stifling legislation, red tape and laws is simply not the answer. It will only make things worse, which is the intention—to drive people to employment in heavily unionised corporate companies. Sadly, this will stymie those in our community who have entrepreneurial flair and want to take the plunge of owning their own small business. This is just another ideology of socialism and communism. They are a party that by their actions just destroy aspiration, kill dreams, take away our freedoms and choice and hurt not only small-business owners and contractors but the very workers that they mislead into thinking that they care about. It's reprehensible.

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