Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No.2) Bill 2023. Plenty of people have a problem with this bill, particularly small-business owners, Australian small and family businesses and their employees. The government's crushing war on small business continues. After the complete shambles we saw at the end of last year, we now have this condensed 183-page recipe on how to kill an Australian small business, cooked up by the lifelong servant of the union movement and now minister Tony Burke.

This is a bill that is incredibly complicated. It adds extra significant cost to small and family businesses. It adds it to all businesses but particularly small and family businesses. It does that at a particularly difficult time, in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis that this government has been unable to rein in. Hardworking Australian families are continuing to have trouble keeping their heads above water, paying their bills and deciding what to put in the trolley and how much petrol to put in the car. The government has said: 'That doesn't matter. We still have to press ahead with this further impost on Australian families and small businesses.'

This bill does nothing to address the productivity crisis and it does absolutely nothing to increase competition. It places jobs at significant risk and it seeks only to act as part of the blank cheque that the Labor government writes to the union movement every single election. It does nothing for Australian small businesses and Australian employers. What it does do is seek to divide our country, instigating conflict between employees and employers, and playing the old class-warfare tune that seems to be the go-to for the Labor Party. It is completely neglectful of the legitimate concerns of Australian small businesses. Late last year, I sat in the main committee room with over 150 key stakeholders of Australian small and family businesses, and not one single stakeholder in that room representing a small or family Australian business said that they were happy with this bill. Worst of all, this bill weakens our economy, making an already bad situation worse.

There are a couple of parts of the bill that I specifically want to speak on today. The first one relates to complexity. This is a complex bill. It is not simple. It is confusing. We have a duty here in this place to make sure that the laws we make are accessible and comprehensible to the Australian people, that they make sense and that they are simple to follow. This bill doesn't do that, and that couldn't be more important than in the realm of industrial relations, where it is very important that workers and businesses know both their rights and their obligations, and that they understand their rights and their obligations without necessarily having to pay for legal advice to be able to understand.

What is hidden behind this is an agenda of union domination, where unions are heavily funded and resourced, capable of understanding and perhaps designing these incredibly complex provisions, and with direct advocates at the highest level of government, whereas small and family businesses are left on their own to navigate costly red tape.

This government has failed to demonstrate how these new laws will make it easier for businesses to employ people, increase productivity, create a higher skilled workforce or raise living standards while we continue to navigate a cost-of-living crisis. This is a radical reordering of Australian workplace law which every business organisation in this country has pleaded with the government to review. This sort of complexity, and the costs associated with it, will be almost impossible for Australian small businesses to deal with.

The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations's appearance at a Senate estimates hearing was characterised by a series of complex and confusing explanations in relation to this bill and, in particular, its impact on casuals. If the department is confused, how are small and family businessowners meant to know? Numerous departmental officials were required to explain various parts of the controversial bill. Let's think about that. That means that a number of different experts from the department were required in order to, in some way, explain this bill. How is a small Australian business meant to navigate that? It often took two or three officials to contribute to the answer to a single question. So, for one question, an Australian small business might need to go to two or three separate experts in order to understand how to meet their obligations under this legislation. Many in the room were more confused at the end of the explanation about the complexities imposed on businesses than they were at the start. Australian small businesses will have to pay for confusing legal advice that may not give them the clarity that they require in order to meet their obligations under this legislation.

Next I want to turn to the costs that will be imposed on consumers and businesses as result of this bill. At a time when hardworking Australian families are really struggling, this government has decided that they need higher costs for products that they use every day. Because things aren't expensive enough, we're going to make them more expensive, and now's the right time. Let's not forget that hardworking Australians are also the same hardworking Australians that run small and family businesses. They go home and have to pay their bills as well. They have electricity bills for their business; they have electricity bills at home. They have fuel costs for their business equipment; they have fuel costs for the family car. Mr Burke himself has admitted that the new laws will increase costs for consumers for everyday services they have come to rely on. This is not something that we're just making up to be difficult; this is something that Mr Burke himself has admitted. That is that these laws will increase costs for consumers for everyday services that they have come to rely on.

Millions of Australians are already suffering under the crippling cost-of-living crisis that this government has created. Uber has said that its costs will go up by about 60 per cent. Uber Eats delivery fees will be up by about 85 per cent, and those numbers will only be compounded with penalty rates on weekends and public holidays. So what does that actually mean? Your $30 Uber home from the pub next Saturday night will start to look more like $50 or $60 after this bill has passed. On top of this, a surge after the cricket or the football means your Uber home is probably costing you more than your ticket to the game. So you decide you're going to walk or try to find a late-night bus. Guess what happens then? That Uber driver doesn't get the job. The additional cost to tech companies providing the services Australians rely on will be pushed on to consumers and the businesses that rely on their services. With the cost of living spiking, this will only discourage consumers from engaging with the economy through gig platforms. That means less money to businesses and fewer jobs. The gig economy was an innovation. This is effectively a tax on innovation. These proposed changes threaten the viability of Australia's vibrant platform economy that delivers essential goods and services from our business community to our consumers.

I think we know Tony Burke's real agenda here. He has previously referred to the gig economy as a cancer. These words are an insult to the numerous hardworking independent contractors across Australia, people who believe that they have a right to choose how they work. Consumers benefit from the innovative new services that gig platforms deliver, particularly the convenience, range of services and choice. There is a growing community appetite for the fast and convenient delivery of services that this economy facilitates, which in turn is helping Australians manage busy and changing lives, such as by having meals delivered or being able to rely on rideshare. As I've noted, workers are choosing to do gig work, often as a second job, as they and their family navigate this cost-of-living crisis or when they want to choose their own work arrangements which suit their requirements and their needs, particularly for students, parents and retirees. They aren't stupid. A mum with children at school isn't stupid if she wants to work casually while her kids are at school. She knows what works for her. They don't need unions and this government or any government dictating that to them.

Gig workers are themselves innovating along with changes to technology to best take advantage of work opportunities that platforms offer. Many log on to multiple apps simultaneously to access gig assignments that optimise their time and minimise their costs. These gig workers are self-managing when and how they work and gain both agency and new work opportunities from doing so. This form of work has grown. It is welcomed by workers, vendors and customers because it meets the needs of all.

Industrial relations reform is, without doubt, one of the most important of all the economic reforms required to make Australia more productive and competitive. The focus of IR reforms should be to make us more productive and to create more jobs, not to be more complicated and more costly, and not to put jobs at risk. These workplace relations changes will add uncertainty and complexity to the employment of millions of casuals and contractors, and this is not good for the economy.

The bill will amend the Fair Work Act to enable unions to exercise right of entry powers, without any notice, whenever it relates to wage underpayment. Let's think about that. To gain immediate entry, the union only need to assert that to the Fair Work Commission that they suspect a case of wage underpayment.