Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Polley foolishly interjects and says, 'You are.' Well, since day one from the formation of Australia, we have had an independent industrial commission—and so it ought to be independent. Indeed, when Mr Shorten, the man that traded away penalty rates for his workers on a number of occasions, was asked on the Neil Mitchell program on 21 April 2016 if he would abide by the decision of the Fair Work Commission if they were to reduce penalty rates. He answered, 'Yes'—not once, not twice but three times. Three times he said he would accept the decision—a decision which now puts penalty rates back to where they were a few years ago when Senator Seselja was a young man. It is a penalty rate regime that Senator Farrell embraces. So basically what has occurred is that the penalty rates went up from 150 per cent to 200 per cent. On reflection the Fair Work Commission said: 'This is cutting too many people out of an employment opportunity. We should reduce it back to 150 per cent.'

When you have an independent industrial umpire, it stands to reason that sometimes you will agree with their decision and other times you will not agree with their decision, but you have to protect the integrity of the umpire. When they determined that the penalty rate should be 200 per cent, did you have the sort of outrage from the small-business community? They said, 'We don't agree with the decision, but, you know what, it's the umpire's decision and we will pay accordingly.' But now we have a leadership of the Australian Labor Party and of the ACTU that is willing to say to the Australian people, 'If you don't like a law, you can break it.' That is what the new ACTU secretary said in recent times: 'If you don't like a law, just go and break it.'

The Labor senators in this place were given the opportunity to vote on a motion supporting the rule of law in this country, and they denied leave. They denied, with the Greens and others in this place, a proper debate on this issue. So when you come to industrial relations and the Australian Labor Party, you see that they speak with forked tongue. They speak out of both sides of their mouths. They will say that penalty rates have to be protected, but then busily negotiate away the rates for their own deals. And then they have their own convoluted deals, where money somehow finds its way into union pockets.

This is a very important debate for our nation to have. Do we want the unemployed, the underemployed, the consumers of Australia to have greater opportunities? We on this side say yes, and we accept the umpire's decision. What is more, this will also alleviate the burden on some small business people who are either unable to open their businesses on weekends and compete with the multinationals because of the union wage deals, or they do work on a weekend and ensure that they and their family are all embracing the business on the weekend because they cannot afford to pay people. This decision will enable them to employ the unemployed and the underemployed, and that will be a huge social good for each and every one of them. In relation to police, nurses, firemen: their penalty rates are, of course, protected. Penalty rates are not being abolished; they are simply, by this decision, being adjusted by Labor's own independent umpire.