Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Bill 2023. There is nothing more to say about this bill than that it is a bad bill for Australia. In fact, it is disastrous. Senator Sheldon just used the saying, 'If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.' Well, I tell you what, there is a far more apt saying about this bill, and that is: 'You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.' This bill does not fool anybody. You can dress it up in all of the pious things that have been said on the other side of the chamber—as if there's only one side of this chamber that has compassion for Australians. You can be as pious as you like, but nothing will change the fact that this week the Prime Minister lost the confidence of the Australian people because his word is no longer his bond.

It is a sad, sad day for this parliament and, I actually think, for our democracy because not only have we lost trust in a prime minister whose word is no longer his bond but we now have an enormous bill before this place, the place of scrutiny, that has been rushed through. We've got amendments. We've got detail in there that has been done as part of a dirty, rushed deal with two crossbenchers, and those on this side of the chamber have not even seen those changes, which are now being guillotined through this place tonight and tomorrow. I cannot think, in the last 10 years, of a more shameful lack of transparency, lack of honesty and lack of accountability to the Australian people in the house of scrutiny and review, the Senate.

The Albanese government's so-called closing the loophole 2.0 bill will not make life easier, contrary to what Senator Sheldon has just said. I challenge him and I challenge Senator Ghosh, who's now in this chamber, to find me one single businessperson in Western Australia, small business or large. You go. I challenge Senator Ghosh to find one person, somebody in a small business at the local shops, who will stand up and actually understand the 26 steps that Senator Scarr so clearly went through. He's a lawyer. He's an employment lawyer, and it took him three hours to figure out the steps he had to work through under this bill to determine if somebody is a casual employee or not. It is an absolute disgrace. As I said, there will not be a single business. In fact, if they had been listening over the past few months, they would know that there is not an organisation that represents small businesses and industries across all sectors that has not been begging and pleading for this not to be rushed through, to be guillotined and to be subject to dirty closed deals with those on the crossbench who suddenly think that their scrutiny is the only scrutiny that now needs to be done on big and complex bills. It is shameful.

Why is this bill so bad? With what we've actually been able to scrutinise so far in this bill, why is it so bad for Australians and, in particular, Western Australians? As Senator Scarr has said, it is impossibly complex. The government has made sure we don't even have time to actually ask them the questions in committee. Do they actually understand what the answers to the questions are? I can bet you anything that, if any of those opposite had been asked in committee tomorrow and had had the time to explain how small business works out the definition of casualisation and a casual staff member, not one of them would have been able to sit there and go through the 26 steps. It is impossibly complex. There is far too much uncertainty, which, again, those opposite are hiding from the scrutiny of this place. That's the first thing. It also adds additional costs to business. It is complete fantasy for those opposite to say that, with the cost-of-living crisis they have already imposed on the Australian people, somehow they think this is going to reduce the cost of living for small businesses, the majority of which are families who have got business mortgages and home mortgages, increased prices in just about everything and rising inflation. Now, all of a sudden, they're going to be hit with additional costs and complexity through this. It is a disgrace.

The third reason is not just that it's making those businesses, small businesses in particular, pay more for the cost of doing business but—what are they going to do?—they're going to have to pass on the cost to their customers, which many small businesses really don't have the option of doing because they've already had to raise the cost of their goods and services in line with the cost-of-living increases from those opposite.

Those opposite have also said that it will increase productivity. What rubbish. Any economist or anybody in business knows that these union demands will actually decrease productivity, and decrease it significantly, and that does nothing to help put more jobs into our market. It does nothing to enhance competition, which is the lifeblood of our small, medium and large businesses. And it risks Western Australian jobs. You have to know that. It risks jobs in Western Australia and across the rest of the nation.

The only ones to benefit from this are Labor's union paymasters. The only ones to benefit from this are the most militant trade unions in this nation. It's not Australian workers.

This bill also will be so destructive because it will institutionalise conflict in our workplaces. In workplaces, particularly small workplaces, where employers have worked together with their employees in great harmony and cooperation, this will impact on them negatively.

The Labor government in their speeches today have also claimed that the bill has made concessions for businesses. What rot. There is not a single business or business organisation that would be able to identify any redeeming features in this.

The Labor government has failed to demonstrate in any way how these new laws will make it easier for businesses to employ people, how they will make it easier to create a higher skilled workforce, how they will actually increase productivity or how they will raise living standards when they're putting more pressure on families and businesses that are already suffering so much from the cost-of-living increases under those opposite since they've come to government. They've talked about it, they've claimed it, but there has not been one shred of evidence of how this will improve the life of a single Australian.

As Bran Black, the CEO of the Business Council of Australia, said, 'Unfortunately, these changes do not address the significant concerns of Australian businesses and they will make our economy less productive and make casual employment and pay uncertain' for over 2½ million Australians. During the summer break, back in Perth, I visited many local businesses and they all shared the same concerns. They were asking me—and a number begged me—to urge this government to stop or amend this disastrous bill for them.

These measures are designed pretty much to do two things, and it's pretty clear what they are. One is to grow union membership, which has been declining for years because people have chosen not to join unions. It is also designed to give unions effective control of our national economy in the same way that unions now completely control those opposite and the Albanese government. Gig workers, casual employees, tradies, sole traders, independent contractors—what do all these people have in common? The answer is that none of these groups have any real interest in joining the union movement, and until this point it has been their free will not to join. This is a direct attack on their freedoms.

We've seen this week in WA what damage the union movement can do. The CFMMEU has struck a 25 per cent pay deal with Multiplex, which has significant implications for the construction and building industry in Western Australia, which is already under significant financial pressures. This will mean that building costs will be passed on to consumers, and it will put even further out of reach homes for first home buyers in Western Australia, at a time when so many building companies are already going out of business because they literally cannot afford to do business anymore. As Innes Willox, the Australian Industry Group Chief Executive, said:

They are out of whack with where inflation is trending, have no clear productivity trade-offs and fly in the face of the RBA's hope for wage moderation to help fight inflation over the longer term … The CFMEU will now obviously push to replicate these increases across the sector … Significant parts of the construction sector are now under real stress and big pay increases will only add to greater volatility.

This deal will inflate our economy, and inflation is something which we and anybody with a mortgage or who goes to the grocery store every week know only too well.

I'll quote Jennifer Westacott, the former chief executive of the BCA, about this bill. She said:

These changes will create confusion and extra costs for consumers, make it harder to hire casual workers and create uncertainty for employing anybody.

Any government that's serious about cost of living would not do this.

They should not add cost and complexity at a time when people are struggling to pay their bills.

We on this side of the chamber firmly believe that enterprise bargaining should be the cornerstone of our workplace relations system. It is necessary in order for us all to grow our pay packets, to improve job security, to bolster the flexibility that employees have come to demand and expect and to boost productivity for our nation's economy. Australia needs a modern workplace relations system that delivers a safety net for workers, recognises the shared interests of managers and workers in an enterprise's success and gives all enterprises the agility they need to compete and succeed. Any changes, we believe, must be designed to improve productivity, grow wages and enhance competition. They are the ingredients of a successful economy which allows people to be employed, have secure employment and have flexibility in their family lives and in their personal aspirations, but none of these are things that we see in this current bill. Shame on those opposite for what they are about to unleash on Australia.

I'll finish on this: probably the most egregious part of Labor's bill is the new definition of 'casual employment' that will replace the existing definition in the Fair Work Act. There are 25, if not 26, steps that a small business, such as a lunch bar owner, wanting to put on a casual will now have to go through. None of those opposite, as I said earlier, would be able to stand up here right now and even explain what those 26 steps are. How do you expect a small, struggling businessperson to do that when all they want to do is employ a casual worker—a student, a parent or somebody else who's looking for flexibility—who wants to come and work a few hours a week for them? Despite all the rhetoric from the Albanese government and the union movements about a casualisation epidemic, the facts are clear: this works for millions of Australians, and you are taking away their choice. Shame on you for this bill.