Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I realise that Senator Steele-John came in and made a contribution to this discussion; in fact, the MPI today is about employers and ensuring workers get fair pay, entitlements and conditions. Labor would have you believe that this is a government that isn't looking after workers, when in fact the only side proposing to cut wages and cost jobs is sitting on the opposite side of the chamber, the Labor Party. We recently heard opposition leader Anthony Albanese announce his undercooked and disappointing attempt at an industrial relations policy. It has nothing to help employers and employees work together, nothing to grow jobs, nothing to address underpayments or fix a broken enterprise bargaining system. But do you know what it does contain?

It contains either a $20 billion a year business tax or, on the other side, a cut in casual pay equal to, on average, $153 a week. Yep, that's right. The Attorney-General's Department has estimated that just one element of the plan proposed by those opposite—extending paid annual leave, sick leave and long service leave entitlements to casual employees and independent contractors—would cost up to $20.3 billion per year. A $20 billion per year business tax.

Over the course of the last week we've heard that those opposite suggest quickly that this isn't the plan, but then we saw the ACTU suggest that Labor's policy would actually be to cut casuals' pay to extend these new entitlements. The Attorney-General's Department has estimated this would cost a casual employee, on average, $153 a week. So which side of this chamber has a desire to cut pay? It is not this one.

As we have shown through the pandemic, the government is constructive and pragmatic when it comes to industrial relations policy. We focused on measures designed to regrow jobs, to boost wages and to enhance productivity, doing so in the same cooperative spirit that the country has so successfully embraced in our approach to the pandemic. We have done this through extensive consultation with unions and industry, aiming to bring people together and not divide them.

What the country doesn't need is more attempts by Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party to turn workplaces into battlegrounds, pitching employers against employees for their own political purposes. We had hoped that 2021 might see the opposition adopt a more mature approach to industrial relations. But sadly their continued bluff, attitude and outright lies about what our government is proposing shows that they remain hopelessly fixated, as always, not on solving problems but playing politics.

The government's willingness to consult widely was evidenced last week when it announced the removal of the temporary section 189 amendment. By refusing to back the bill Anthony Albanese has shown he is only concerned about protecting one job: his own. The government's IR package addresses known problems within our industrial relations system and Labor's Fair Work Act. The reforms will not only support wages growth and help grow the jobs lost to the pandemic but tackle broader issues like underemployment, job security, underpayment of wages and the failure of Labor's enterprise bargaining system to drive wages and productivity growth. In fact, it is a Liberal government that is working to deliver these outcomes.

In continuing to oppose the government's IR bill here is what the Labor Party is against: tougher civil penalties and new criminal penalties to stamp out wage theft, a quicker way to recover underpayments when they occur, a quicker enterprise approval process through the Fair Work Commission to help deliver pay rises more quickly. But, of course, it's old Labor saying, 'Let's block everything and change nothing.' What else do they want to block? The opportunity for more hours of work for almost 30 per cent of part-time employees in the retail sector and around 40 per cent of part-time employees in the accommodation and food services sector. So much for Labor being on your side. Definitely not if you are a part-time worker or a—(Time expired)