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

I thank Senator Bernardi for his question. Senator Bernardi has a deserved reputation for being a real champion of small business, and the reason he champions the cause of small business is that he knows of their job-creating capacity. There are nearly two million small businesses in this country and over the past three years the number of people employed by small businesses has grown by 31 per cent.

Unlike Labor, the Howard government has sought to assist small businesses to employ even more people by removing the Keating government’s so-called ‘unfair dismissal’ laws—laws which were an impediment to job creation in this country. In fact, since these laws were repealed—in the face of Labor opposition—we have seen over 200,000 jobs created, 80 per cent of them full-time. That is what Labor opposed: 200,000 new jobs, 80 per cent of them full-time.

The problem with those unfair dismissal laws is well known. Take the following comments:

... small business owners could not afford the time or expense of being dragged off to tribunals by ‘ambulance-chasing agents representing frivolous or vexatious claims of unfair dismissal’. Such claims were often designed to extract ‘go-away money’ ...

I wonder who said that. Those opposite know. It was Dr Craig Emerson, the Labor Party’s spokesman on small business, only two days ago. Yet another Labor figure said this about Labor’s policy on the ABC’s Madonna King program:

I am saying to you right now ... that I have not said ... that we are exempting small business [from the unfair dismissal laws].