Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a question for the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Small businesses in Wentworth are really struggling, and one of the main reasons is complex regulation that has gotten worse this term. Members of the crossbench wrote to the government about raising the threshold of the definition of 'small business' from 15 to 25 workers. Now, this isn't expected to cost $125 million, $1.6 billion or even $10 billion a year. Will the government support the implementation of this reasonable and measurable, practical policy that would support small business?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Wentworth for the question and acknowledge that the member for Wentworth has been relentless in advocating for small business, which has often caused us to have different views on my legislation. Some of the legislation that I introduced when I was the minister did not have a large number of small-business exemptions when it was introduced; by the time it went through the parliament, it did.

The question that the member for Wentworth goes to is whether the threshold as to how you define 'small business' in workplace relations legislation should be changed. There are a series of different definitions of 'small business' in different pieces of legislation, as most members are aware. What needs to be remembered when people have their own commonsense view of what a small business is is that, under workplace relations legislation, overwhelmingly, casuals are not counted in those figures. So, when you consider a workplace that has 16 employees, that may in fact represent a much larger workplace, and, if you were to take that to 25, there are a good number of workplaces—a very good number—particularly highly casualised workplaces, which no reasonable person would consider to be small businesses which would suddenly find the workforce there exempt from a whole lot of rights that this parliament has decided workers should have.

We want to make sure that we get the balance right in providing the distinction between acknowledging the different pressures that small businesses are under, particularly with paperwork, and making sure that the definitions are realistic, because every exemption carries two consequences. It does mean that those businesses have an easier compliance burden; that's true. But it does also mean that the workers who work there have fewer rights than they would have in another business. Making the change in definition is a very big step, and given the way many businesses are structured with respect to casuals—that's why we have not been supporting a change in that number.