Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We come to a situation here in the Senate where we get a number of speakers from the opposition who get up and talk about industrial relations. In actual fact, they even have the hide to talk about being the representatives of small businesses. Senator Sterle set them straight. In actual fact, I have the great pleasure of saying I was the elected head of the largest small-business organisation in this country, the Transport Workers Union of Australia, with over 15,000 owner-drivers. I know that whenever I went into a workplace I wanted to make sure there was an outcome where the company was successful, the industry was successful and those workers got a fair deal, whether they were a small-business person or an employee.

All those chimpanzees on the other side of this chamber are saying they're going to make sure that they do what they're told by the big gorillas—the ones that were called out by Steve Knott—because those big gorillas give them bananas; they just won't share them with the rest of the country.

The fact is, small business is getting it in the neck, under these laws that were stood over by this opposition when they were in government. We have to have a law that turns around and makes sure that we can lift productivity. Productivity gets lifted when groups of workers come together and collectively bargain with their employer and—heaven forbid—across an industry.

I've been in industries and have seen industries where employers that are in the middle of the supply chain are continually stood over by the top of the supply chain—the big gorillas that they are protecting, the ones who have the hide to come in here and represent ACCI and others and have turned around and supported not small business but big business. If you really talk to small business, they'll say it's those economic employers who engage them that are the problem, because they're the ones who don't turn around and make sure their payments are made on time. They're the ones who give them 120 days. They're the ones who turn around and say, 'I can't train my staff,' because it's a race to the bottom. They say, 'I can't turn around and give them a pay increase, to keep my experienced staff in the business, because my competition will go lower and it's a race to the bottom.'

You only have to go to Alan Joyce to see that. Now that's the big gorilla. They're the people they are supporting. It's not just them or even Alan Joyce; it's companies like Amazon, these international companies that are competing with small and other businesses that are stealing their arrangements. What they're doing is undercutting, by turning around and having multiple labour hire companies, having very few people on decent wages, refusing to have bargaining arrangements, that sack people because they're pregnant, that sack them because they're in a union, that sack them when they try to organise. They're the people they're standing up for. They don't want the system changed.

Wait a second—they do want the system changed. Only in this last number of days, and again this morning, Angus Taylor said the system's working okay. Wages aren't going up—that's why he said it's working okay. Small businesses are getting done over by those big gorillas because they can't keep and train their staff, they can't get the wages across their markets, and sometimes that's even negotiations across government contracts. They have to have the capacity, in the private and government sectors, to bargain when they want to, when there's an appropriate way to do that. Workers have a right to say that, as business has a right to say that, and parties have a right and obligation to come around and negotiate an agreement.

If an employer says, 'I want to negotiate an agreement across the site,' they have a right to do that. If an employee—more than 50 per cent plus one—says, 'I want to negotiate an agreement across the site,' they have a right to do that. Heaven forbid! That's where you have an equal voice. That's where you have equal opportunity. That's where you can turn around and start moving wages up. When wages go up, people start talking about how to make it more efficient, more effective, with better training and skills, and, heaven forbid, productivity goes up.

You only have to look at the ACHC that gave evidence to the inquiry. You only have to look at what was said by the Victorian early childhood educators and their employer association. They said that's how they got better conditions, better arrangements, not just for the workforce; these small multiple employers all got together and said, 'Let's do it together.'

The last big myth is when Senator Reynolds talked about this $15,000. It was in place—right now—without any law change! The fact is, you make a choice whether you want to do it or not.