Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Education and Minister for Social Inclusion. I refer the minister to her disparaging comments yesterday in this House about beauticians and similar small businesses. I also refer the minister to her previous attacks on small business, including the Lilac City Motor Inn, Goulburn, and her threat that business should step back from policy debates or it may get injured. Does the minister really understand the negative impact on business confidence from her continuing attacks?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She’s laughing at it!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am laughing at the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, but I do thank her for her question. Can I make it very clear to members opposite that of course we value the work performed by all Australians. As I joked with the Leader of the Opposition before question time started, I have certainly valued the services of people who give manicures. And, as a matter of public record, I am very fond of hairdressers—one in particular! So I very much value the contribution of small businesses to the Australian economy.

Let me tell you what small businesses want when it comes to the Australian economy. They want a sense of being included in government policy making. And what is this government doing? We are including them in government policy making. My colleague the Minister for Small Business, Independent Contractors and the Service Economy is doing this generally, but we are specifically doing it in the delivery of our fair and balanced alternative to the extremism of Work Choices. We are working with small businesses in a small business working group so they can give us the benefit of their expertise on questions that they are concerned about and have a view on, including of course unfair dismissals but also the burden of red tape that they object to in Work Choices. Let us remind ourselves that the self-styled advocates of small business over there gave small business an industrial relations system that means they are waiting months at the back of queues hundreds of thousands of agreements long—

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. My question was specifically about the minister’s attacks on small business, which have a negative impact on business confidence. It is at the lowest level ever in government policies.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. It is not an invitation to repeat the question.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am explaining to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that this is a government that is including small business in policymaking because we value their views. When we listen to the views of small business about policymaking, what they tell us is they did not appreciate being at the back of a queue hundreds of thousands of agreements long, waiting five, six or seven months for an answer as to whether or not their agreement had been passed by the Workplace Authority. This was the administrative shambles that the former government left to this government to resolve in industrial relations, and resolve it we will by delivering a fair, balanced and flexible system that will work for the needs of small business, which will mean that they are not caught up in endless red tape. But it will do something that members opposite do not understand, never will understand and never have understood: it will extend fairness to Australian working families.

We know that the opposition are opposed to a fair industrial relations system. We know that they are still, with every statement they make, entering into an ode of love to Work Choices and that, whatever they pretend, however they position, they are now and always will be the party of Work Choices and industrial relations extremism. Australian working families who voted last November rejected them because they did not want it. They do not want it now and they will not want it in the future.