Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the Fair Work Amendment (Paid Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2022. I want to start by acknowledging the words of Senator Green. My heart goes out to all of those families who have been the subject of a what is truly the most awful scourge of our modern-day lives. It's not a new one, of course. I believe that domestic violence victims deserve support. I believe that support should be better targeted than what this is proposing. But, mostly, I want to talk about the impact on small businesses.

There's been talk already of the work that small businesses are doing to support employees who are the subject of an awful act of violence against them and their children. These small businesses are already providing both paid and unpaid leave. But, importantly, during the last government, it was the government who paid a cash component as well as an in-kind component. What this legislation does is once again shift society's responsibilities and demands for action to the people least able to support it. I don't speak of government. I don't speak of big corporate employers. I speak of the 42 per cent of jobs that are created in this country by very small businesses, by mums and dads who often pay everybody else before they receive anything. These small businesses are already struggling with increased electricity prices, increased superannuation payments, the increased cost of living and increased transport costs. There are myriad costs that are being put upon small businesses, whose margins are becoming thinner and thinner.

Last weekend, I spoke to a primary producer, a fisherperson who has a fleet of boats that go out. Of those five boats, one is tied up on the wharves currently due to a workforce shortage because those opposite don't believe in an agriculture visa. They don't understand that, when they pay $15,000 per employee to come into this country, they then have a responsibility to chase them down when they abscond to a cash-paying business. These small businesses are in tears. They are on their knees. They tell me they cannot wait to get out of this employment trap, because they are earning less and less, they have mortgaged their homes and they have a huge amount of stress riding on them. What has this government done? It has taken what was working previously, a situation where government was stepping up to the plate on the responsibility that it rightly has to support victims of domestic violence, with the contribution of small businesses, and smashed its way through the hopes, dreams and capability of 42 per cent of the jobs in this country.

What we're saying to small business operators is: 'Here is one more responsibility for you. We ask you to collect PAYG tax. We ask you to collect child custody support. We ask you to collect superannuation. We ask you to train apprentices. We ask you to support your employees in every way.' But now we also are demanding not only that they have 10 days of paid leave for victims of domestic violence but also that that be extended to casual workers, who already receive 25 per cent loading on their payment.

I do not say this to be cruel or heartless. I'm trying to explain to those opposite, who may or may not have run a business, that the very thin margins for small businesses have been further eroded. What role are we going to provide to assist them? For the perpetuators of domestic violence, what education systems are we putting in place? We know the small business operator cannot counsel their employees about these things. That's an outside-of-work industrial relations matter. They cannot censure their employee who they understand is perpetuating domestic violence. We're giving to the business all the responsibility, accountability and cost but no tools.

What happens when that domestic violence victim comes to their employer and has to identify that they're a victim of domestic violence? I wish this could be called something else. I wish, like the hundreds of people write to me, that this could be called emergency leave or something else that allows employees not to be identified as victims. But, when those people have identified that, what sort of support will the employer be given? In the most awful example where there has been a tragedy, is the employer then responsible for notifying the police? Is the employer taking a legal liability in having been aware of domestic violence but not having reported it? Will they somehow be held accountable in that terrible crime? This is a very serious matter that we are discussing. Nobody disputes that we should be doing everything we can to support family members in the awful situation of being trapped in their own homes in an unsafe environment—nobody disputes that—but we have to be certain that we're not creating a new set of burdens for the people who are now forced to carry that.

Further to what Senator Cash was raising, the Fair Work Commission did consider all the issues proposed in the bill, some of which were put forward by the ACTU—not an employer but a representative of employees. In the 2021 inquiry the question of what workplace leave should be available to victims of family and domestic violence was considered in extensive detail. In reaching its decision, the Fair Work Commission clearly did not support the breadth of the ACTU proposals and found against them. The full bench said that compared to the ACTU claim the provisional model term 'provides better alignment with existing NES entitlements and will have less impact on business in terms of employment costs and the regulatory burden'. So the Fair Work Commission are supported sometimes by the government, but when they make a very sound argument for not extending this to casual employees they are completely disregarded. Even the ACTU acknowledged that there are significant operational difficulties in extending paid family and domestic violence leave to casuals, as noted by the Fair Work Commission. Remember, Madam Acting Deputy President, there is no HR department in these businesses. There is no extensive network of administration, form-fillers and so forth. These are the men and women who go home at night and do all of that in their own time. This responsibility—asking people to hold all the reins of running a business and paying their employees, and potentially to take on additional legal liability—is incredibly concerning.

It is also most concerning to read in the explanatory memorandum that there will be no cost to government. Of course there's no cost to government, because it has been passed on to somebody who has not perpetrated the violence, who has not done this to families! It's the small-business operator who'll pay the price. If, at the end of the day, there are any small-business operators left in this land, I will be surprised, because this government, with every single cost impost and regulatory burden, shows it has no regard for them. It is incredibly distressing. I wish those opposite would go and speak to small-business operators. I wish those opposite would go and explain to them exactly what it is that this legislation will do. Perhaps, then, they will see the additional despair in those people's eyes, those people who are saying, 'I'm going to walk away from fishing,' 'I'm going to walk away from my small business,' 'I will no longer have apprentices in this business,' and 'I'm carving my business down to a size that I do not have to continue taking on the cost and responsibility that is society's, rightly.' This is society's burden. We acknowledge that. Everybody understands that. We must do more.

This bill is not about addressing the perpetrators of domestic violence. It is not about additional housing. It is not about additional programs. It is not even about a very smart communications program. It is about saying to small-business operators, 'You will bear the cost of these outrageous and egregious crimes.' So I support the 12-month review following on from this legislation. I'm very keen to see the cumulative impact on small businesses. I want to urge the government to, instead, continue to build on the work of the former coalition government in implementing strategies to prevent domestic violence and to support victims.