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

I'm not really sure about the merit of having these motions to debate legislation which we've just debated a few months ago in the same parliament, but I don't criticise the particular member who moved this. I'm sure it has probably been a practice for some time and, no doubt, under the previous government. We've had all the debates on the legislation that this motion refers to, but I'll take the opportunity to stand up here because I want to reiterate something I've said to the business community before—particularly to small businesses and family businesses. And that is that when you hear this appalling rhetoric from the government, accusing anyone who is in business—anyone who takes a risk, puts their capital on the line, works hard, wants to contribute to our economy and, hopefully, employ people—then you can think to yourself, 'There's one side of politics which thinks I'm evil and that all I'm looking to do is exploit the people who work for me'. I want those people in the business community—particularly the small business and family business community—to know that there's the other side of politics, which thinks quite differently.

Here in the coalition, we appreciate the people who take a risk, put their money on the line and start a business. We know that 70 per cent of businesses will fail in their first three years, and we know that people can lose a lot in taking that risk. So when they're successful, good on them—and thank you to them for what they contribute to our economy. And there's nothing wrong with big businesses, because the bigger the business the more successful they've been, the more people they employ and the more they contribute to our economy. They help to pay for the great standard of living that we have in this country. The private sector and the business community are the heart of our success, so people who want to demonise them, think they're evil and talk about them in derogatory ways, as if they're one big group, should be ashamed of themselves. They should reflect on the fact that these people are the ones doing the heavy lifting in our economy.

The member for Monash made a great point, which reminds us of the value of members who have served for a long time in the parliament—the experience they have and the things they can reflect on. He talked about the Hawke-Keating era—about opening up our economy and introducing flexibility into the workplace. This was particularly with the Keating government and enterprise bargaining; the concept of saying, 'There have to be ways in which employees and the employer in a particular business in a particular enterprise can come together and talk about ways in which they can have flexibility from the straitjacket of some of the awards et cetera that are mutually agreed upon and which are to beneficial to the employees and the employer in that business.' The Rudd-Gillard Fair Work Act really deconstructed all of that, and what we've seen from this government are further retrograde steps away from flexibility and mutual benefits for employees and employers.

All these things that the government are talking about were not things they made any virtue of in the election campaign. They never talked about all this re-empowerment of the union movement in a campaign. This agenda was all hidden from the voters. All the measures that we're seeing coming through with these salami-slicing tactics in these various IR bills to benefit the union movement were never going to be campaigned on, because this government was never going to want to shine a light on what it was going to do to repay the union movement for the enormous financial backing that the union movement gives it in its political quests.

But we also know that there is always a price to pay for that support, and we see it in a lot of elements of these industrial relations reforms that are about the union movement—things like not requiring an employee's approval to increase deductions from their pay packet, that little gem that was in one of the bills last year, and so many other things that benefit the union movement, who come into the chamber to look down upon these votes and see, with great pride, their handiwork in action. I am sure that these union bosses brag to each other about what they got for the donations that they gave to the Labor Party in the last campaign.

So we're onto this, and I think the Australian people are onto it as well. To the businesses that are going to suffer because of the treatment they receive and the aspersions cast against them for doing nothing other than growing their business, employing people and contributing to our economy, we apologise for the derogatory terms hurled at them. We support them and thank them, particularly small businesses and family businesses, for what they do as the backbone of our economy.

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