Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

As I say, this is a continuation of what we saw yesterday from the opposition, trying to find any possible reason, whether it be websites or people—consultants. What this is actually about is one of the false claims that the opposition has been making this week, which is their claim that it will cost small businesses $14,000 to participate in multi-employer bargaining, and medium-sized employers will pay even more. Now, you'll be surprised to hear that that's actually wrong.

The way the laws are structured allows for small businesses to have access to the cooperative workplaces stream, so that, if a small business wants to go and engage a consultant, whoever that might be, to assist them with their results, then that's a matter for them. But what I think you will find is that most small businesses are members of chambers of commerce, are members of industry associations, who would actually go and do the negotiations on their behalf. And then a small business would have the option of choosing to be part of that or not. Of course, if their workers would like to be part of that, then the majority of those workers have to go through a process to support that option. They also have to go to the Fair Work Commission to get approval to do so. So this idea—