Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Just so everybody is aware of what's about to happen: these are some of the most complex and confusing laws that not just the Australian parliament but businesses across Australia—it doesn't matter what size business; medium businesses, larger businesses. I personally really feel for the small businesses in Australia, the mums and dads of Australia that wake up every single day and merely do what we, as other Australians, ask them to do: to get up in the morning, to open their doors, to run their business, perhaps even to employ some Australians—in other words, give those Australians a job that they can go to. I feel very sorry for them because, in 1½ hours' time, under the 'transparent'—ha-ha, rather ironic, I'm being sarcastic—Albanese Labor government we will actually end the scrutiny of what are, as I said, possibly the most confusing and complex industrial relations laws to ever come before this parliament.

You only have to pick up the phone to a small business owner. I've always said Labor wouldn't know a small business owner unless they were trying to shut their business, which is why they're ramming through these laws today. You have only to pick up the phone to a small business in Australia or even just walk into one to know. The first thing they'll say to you is, 'When is this pain going to end?' 'Unfortunately,' I say to them, 'there is only one way now, and that is a change of government, because, you see, we back you every step of the way as the coalition government. But I can't tell you.' I can't tell the small businesses of Australia when the pain inflicted on them by the Albanese government is going to end, because they are now swimming in a sea of red tape, of complexity and, more than that, of confusion that they have never seen the likes of.

The bad news for every business in Australia—as I said, ultimately big businesses can take care of themselves, but for small businesses, the backbone of the Australian economy, those who support communities, in particular in rural and regional Australia, each and every day, do you know there are penalties that apply to you if you get this wrong? So you'd better find a good lawyer. That's what I say to them. I don't know where the Albanese government thinks you're going to find the time to actually read what are now hundreds and hundreds of additional pages of complex legislation, bearing in mind this is tranche 3. The first tranche was passed in 2022—and I shouldn't say 'passed'. They had the numbers and rushed it through the parliament. The second tranche went through last year in December. Welcome to 2024. If you thought as a business in Australia that you were drowning under a deluge of red tape, the bad news is it is about to get worse thanks to Prime Minister Albanese. That is his 'happy new year' to businesses across Australia.

At the time of a cost-of-living crisis every time you walk into a shop and you go to buy some food, you see it. You walk out with half the amount that you would normally buy, yet you've paid what feels like double the amount. So you've got a cost-of-living crisis, you've got persistently high inflation, you've got businesses struggling with staff shortages and you've got ever-increasing power costs, and what does Labor say to that? 'That's okay because what we will now do for businesses across Australia—the people who employ Australians every day—is make a bad situation worse.'

What the Labor Party and Mr Anthony Albanese, as the Prime Minister of this country, simply (a) don't understand and (b) conveniently forget, is this: governments do not create jobs. Any government minister that stands in front of you and says, 'The government has just created X number of jobs,' is admitting to you they have increased the size of the Public Service. But it's the employers of this country, the mums and dads who get up every single morning and go out and sweat blood and tears for this country, who do what we need them to do. They provide us with the services that we want on a daily basis and, more than that, they give other Australians jobs.

Governments put in place policy frameworks, and those policy frameworks can have a positive impact. The policy framework that Mr Anthony Albanese, as Prime Minister of this country, is implementing—stage 1 has gone through, stage 2 has gone through and stage 3 will go through shortly—is one that affects businesses across Australia. In fact, I talked to a whole lot last night and they said to me, 'Michaelia, we are just tired.' So many of them said to me, 'We actually don't know why we bother, because Labor have just made it too hard for us, and if we don't bother it means we've got to lay off staff.' I said to them, 'I can't disagree with you because, quite frankly, under the Albanese government why would you bother?'

That's a good point, Senator Scarr. Under this government, why would you start a new business when you have no rights anymore? The Fair Work Commission now runs your business or, alternatively, the unions run your business. You have no rights in relation to your business. Under the Albanese government, you are no longer allowed to run your business in a way that you and your employees see fit to benefit both of you. This government, with their sweeping reforms—which are structurally changing the way businesses in this country do business—have taken away the right for employers and employees to negotiate together. They are allowing the unions—I'd say 'back into business', but this is just supercharged.

For the poor small businesses who've never met a union in their life, the bad news is you'll probably want to go onto Google and work out the ones you're going to meet. But not only that—and I remember standing and asking the minister last time about who decides this and decides that; the bad news is that you'd better find out who the Fair Work Commission in Australia is, and most employers wouldn't know what the Fair Work Commission is, because that body of people are now going to be telling you how to run your business. That's because of Mr Anthony Albanese and his contempt for you and what you contribute to Australia every day. Under Mr Albanese, businesses across Australia better get used to that.

Minister, last night the government said it will be accepting the Greens' amendments on the right to disconnect. We haven't had an opportunity, as a parliament, to even look at them. We only saw the amendments last night. The confusion that is currently in the Australian community about the right to disconnect is just overwhelming, yet—bad news everybody—it's going to be going through at 3.30 pm today.

So I have a series of questions for you. Does an employee have the right to disconnect from clients calling them after hours? Will the right to disconnect apply to journalists? If a politician's media adviser ignores a call from a journalist wanting a quote at 3 am in the morning—you are based in Western Australia and they are on daylight saving time; alternatively, it's for the Sunday paper—are they able to ignore that call from the journalist because it's 3 am or, alternatively, because it's Sunday? If an employee working on a large deal gets a call from a large multinational overseas client in a different time zone, are they able to say to that client, 'Sorry, it's the weekend in Australia. Please call me at 9:30 am on a Monday'? And if a client keeps calling an employee during their disconnection time, is it the employer's duty to call the client— (Time expired)