Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That's the quote. The minister sure isn't being careful, to paraphrase Richard Holden. It's a direct quote. We've seen, since the Albanese government came to power, a collapse of 6.1 per cent in labour productivity in the last 18 months. That's the challenge that we have. It's why we're seeing inflation so high for many reasons. You need to get that balance of higher wages coupled with productivity to ensure that prices don't go up. This legislation is just adding more complexity and cost, and it's making it harder for small business to deal with it.

As a small business owner in my community, Jack, recently wrote to me: 'This is 800 pages long. I don't have enough time or manpower to trawl through it all.' That's the reality. Every time we add more and more legislation in the IR space, it is small business owners that struggle to keep up with it. Big business is fine. They've got significant resources and IR departments to handle it. But we're asking husbands and wives and families with no expertise in IR to understand 800 pages of legislation. Now we learn that the risk is that, if they get it wrong, they can end up in jail. If they get the right to disconnect wrong, which was the legislation that Labor voted for last week, it can put them in jail. That's what happens when you rush legislation in the IR space: you make mistakes and it's the community, employees and employers that suffer.

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