Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Small and Family Business, Workplace and Deregulation. Will the minister please update the House on action the coalition government is taking to develop and implement policies that create a strong foundation to allow small businesses to flourish and create more and better paid jobs for hardworking Australians? Is the minister aware of any risks to the economy's positivity?

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Petrie for his question. I acknowledge that he is yet another on this side of the chamber who, in coming to serve, has turned his back on his own small business. But it's not just a small business; it's a small family business. In his absence, his wife, Louise, has taken up the challenge and is running that business. The member for Petrie assures me that it is our good economic policy—the Turnbull coalition's good economic policy—that is resulting in Louise's far superior performance to his.

The outcomes of those policies are clear to see in today's jobs figures. For the first time ever in our history there have been 16 consecutive months of growth in jobs. For 15 of those 16 months there has been growth in full-time jobs. That's because we have a plan and we're implementing our plan. I'm asked: are there any risks to that plan? The risk is clear. It's the election of a Labor government. The risk is Sally McManus, because she is writing Labor Party policy. In 'McManus-stan'—that alternate universe where the superior leader, Sally McManus, that puppet master, is pulling the strings of her two favourite marionettes, the member for Gorton and the Leader of the Opposition, hard every day—policy positions that she's taking become formal policy positions of the opposition.

What are the things they are espousing? They're espousing untruths. Their whole policy platform is based on untruths, such as, in regard to casualisation: 'The casual workforce is rising.' No, it's not. It's been at 25 per cent for over two decades. The Fair Work Commission last year said:

The level of casual employment has not significantly changed since the enactment of the FW Act …

Labor wants you to believe that we have a problem with labour hiring and independent contracting. Both have been steady for the last decade. Labor wants you to believe that we have a problem with enterprise bargaining. Last year, of the EBAs terminated in this country, three per cent were contested and 97 per cent were not contested. Labor wants to tell the Australian public they can solve minimum wage growth stagnation with a 28 per cent increase. That will decimate the economy, send small and family business out of work and leave hundreds of thousands of Australians unemployed. There is a clear and distinct choice: the plan that we are delivering upon or the plan of the trade unions on the other side. (Time expired)