Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

Just to assist the honourable senator who, given his former days as a union representative, I would have thought might have had a better grasp of some of these concepts, unfair dismissal and unlawful termination are concepts that basically go hand in hand. It is quite churlish of those opposite to seek to discuss one in isolation from the other. What those opposite do not want the Australian workforce to hear is that they have protection against unlawful termination. That is what those opposite are scared of: the Australian workers hearing that there is that guarantee of protection against unlawful termination for reasons such as race, gender or indeed, as Senator Conroy would be very interested in, whether or not you belong to a particular trade union, which I understand is one of the reasons certain people were sought to be disendorsed in Victoria; that is, they happened to belong to the wrong trade union.

With the unfair dismissal laws, what was allowed to occur—and Mr Beazley himself acknowledged this—was that go-away money was paid in the most outrageous of circumstances simply to get the case out of the way, at great expense to small business and, what is more, as a great disincentive to small business employers putting on more workers. As a result, what we sought to do was strike a balance to get rid of the unworkable—and indeed unfair—unfair dismissal laws. I have gone through case after case in this place highlighting to those opposite how unfair the unfair dismissal laws were. There was that celebrated case on the west coast of Tasmania.