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

It's always a pleasure to rise in this place and speak on legislation that, on first blush, has many principles that you could, to a degree, agree with. We want to see workers get home safely. We want to see people paid properly. We want to see higher wages so that people can meet the cost-of-living crisis that we're seeing today. We want to see people have good wages so they can live a standard of living that we now expect in this country. I don't think anybody in this place has an issue with those principles. But, when I look at this Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023, I say, 'How is that going to be achieved?'

I spoke in the Federation Chamber earlier today about the value and importance of small business in our communities. Small businesses employ nearly 50 per cent of our workforce and represent some 97 per cent of businesses in this country. They are the engine room of innovation and dynamism and are creating the future for this country. I see nothing in this bill that is going to assist those businesses—nothing whatsoever.

As I look at this bill I see nothing but more regulation, more red tape and more uncertainty for our small-business owners and more distraction from their core job of running their businesses and employing people to having to focus on IR and industrial relations issues, to the extent that many do not even know what is coming down the track. I was speaking to several members of one of our chambers of commerce last week about these upcoming IR laws and to say that the level of knowledge was poor would be an understatement, and there is much in this bill that they should be seriously concerned about. There is much in this bill that the government has actually made no reasonable case for.

Business groups and employers have said that the proposed IR changes will smash productivity, investment and job creation. We're already seeing issues in the space of productivity and in the space of investment. Increasingly I'm hearing stories of businesses that are not employing more people but are starting to lay people off, particularly in the construction sector. In my electorate of Forde, that probably represents nearly 14 per cent of the workforce.

The government's own estimates state that over the next decade these changes will cost employers an additional $9 billion. How is that additional cost going to be offset by productivity improvements when those businesses are going to be weighed down by a bureaucratic IR system with red tape? It's going to be like an anchor holding them back, and that is not what we need at this time. We need an open, flexible, dynamic economy that can compete with the rest of the world. Should that ensure that people get paid properly for what they do? Absolutely. Should that ensure that people can go to work and come home to their families safe, well and healthy? Absolutely it should. But I believe there are existing mechanisms and processes in place in existing systems at both a state and a federal level that can achieve those things.

One of the things I do find in this space is that there are many, many rules and regulations already in place. It is not a lack of rules and regulations that is the problem; it is a lack of enforcement of those rules and regulations that is the problem. If we spent more time actually focusing on ensuring that our regulators, whether it be the Fair Work Commission or others at a state level—our various state industrial commissions—enforced the rules and regulations that are already in place, I suspect that many of the provisions in this bill would not be required.

Nearly 30 per cent of the employees in my electorate are engaged in part-time or casual work, and the current provision, which the coalition put in place when we were last in government, effectively has a test with three limbs to assess whether a person moves from casual to permanent employment. Yet we see that the bill before us proposes a roughly 15-step process. Is it really necessary to make that so complex? Many people I talk to wish to stay in a casual employment relationship because they enjoy that flexibility. More importantly, in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, they enjoy the extra income. Whilst with that flexibility goes, in many cases, a reasonably stable work schedule, they also appreciate that. But that is, by individual discussion, an agreement with their employers. In the current employer environment, I do not know a single employer in my electorate that isn't seeking to ensure they retain their current workforce. They can't get additional employees to grow their business, so there is very little incentive for them to treat their existing employees poorly; they want to look after them very well. I know many businesses who are paying well over the award to their employees and providing them with additional conditions, such as maybe working from home one day a week or even, in some cases I'm aware of, a four-day working week. All of that is being done without this draconian legislation, because employers want to retain their workforces and get on with what they do, which is produce goods and services for the Australian economy.

As I look at this bill, all I see is the average Australian losing out from most of these measures, and the government has admitted as much. Businesses will be forced to pass on the extra costs through higher prices to consumers or other third-party businesses throughout the supply chain. We will see an increased cost for consumers for everyday services they have come to rely on. With so many of the concerns throughout those bills, who do these changes actually support? I thought the member for Flinders summed it up very well in her closing remarks, about this bill being a Christmas stocking full of gifts for the union movement. We know, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I know that you know, with your background in the trucking industry, there are many, many independent trucking operators that operate that way because that's the way they want to conduct their business and they have the flexibility to do so. But I also know, in the construction sector, having family members in the building industry who operate as independent contractors who work for a number of different builders, whether they're electricians, ceramic tilers, plumbers or brickies, and from my discussions with the Master Builders Association yesterday, that this bill puts that arrangement at risk. It means that those people now become employees.

One of the important attributes of the building sector, with it being so reliant on independent contractors, is that those people get to choose which builders they work for and what hours and days they work. Importantly, it also gives the building companies flexibility to meet the ebbs and flows of the building sector. As we all well know, the building sector operates up and down. It fluctuates with the economy and economic conditions. I know that many of the big building companies that I've spoken to recently and over the years have not employed tradespeople for that very reason—there was no consistency in the project flow for large projects that made it attractive for them to employ people on a full-time basis. I know that some have now changed that view, given that they have a long tail of projects to come down the track, and they feel that, in the current employment environment, it is actually better for them to start to employ tradespeople on their books. But that's a business decision that they have made for the best interests of their business. That shouldn't be forced on every building business in the country, irrespective of their size. These are large businesses that can carry that. But what about the small project builder that maybe only builds three or four homes a year? Does he want to have a sparky, a plumber, a brickie, a concreter, a painter and a roofer all employed on his books all year when he's doing homebuilding projects? I would say no. I would say equally those tradespeople don't want to be employed on his books either, because they want to be able to do work for other builders. This bill stops that dead in its tracks, and for what benefit to our economy? Zero; no benefit whatsoever.

All I can think is that this is about seeking to extend the tentacles of the union movement further into the construction sector. Now, we have seen the consequences of that at the big end of town. The cost of those big projects has now skyrocketed far beyond what was originally costed, and in part that is driven by state government and union policies in terms of wages and conditions which are far in excess of the award. For these and a range of other matters which have been well canvassed by other colleagues in this place, I cannot possibly support this bill.

Do we have a system that needs some tweaks and a bit of reform to streamline it and make it easier and clearer for business and employees to understand and make it function more effectively? I think that's a reasonable argument. But this bill doesn't do that. It doesn't even come close to doing that. What we need is an industrial relations system that is streamlined, effective and fair for all involved and focused on generating productivity in our community, focused on creating the incentive for business to employ people. It is true that business employing people generates wealth and generates economic activity. Not only does it generate wealth and economic activity; it generates wellbeing for those people who are employed and working in a job that they want to work in and be engaged in. It builds community relationships, friendships and relationship, and we all know that people who are in work have far better personal life outcomes than those that aren't. I am seriously worried that this bill fails on all of those fronts.

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