Labors new Industrial Relation Reforms
I look around and I see an Australia that's getting smarter and smarter, an Australian that's getting tired of getting talked down to and controlled. Why is this? Union membership is heading to an all-time low. According to ABS statistics, just 14 per cent of employees were trade union members, and we're well down on the 40 per cent of employees who were trade union members back in the 1990s. Although those opposite want to take our industrial relations laws back to the Hawke Keating years, we do not live in the Hawke-Keating years, Senator Ayres. Despite this, the Labor Party is intent on pursuing an industrial relations policy that lives in a fantasy land where everyone is beholden to a union, and that's what those opposite want. They want to take Australia backwards.
Don't get me wrong, we on this side of the chamber want changes to Australia's industrial relations system. To quote the Leader of the Opposition in parliament:
We all have a genuine desire to improve our industrial relations system. What we don't want is a system of control that those opposite want—a system that wants to control workers, to control where they can work, control what they can earn, control their lives inside and outside the workplace.
The industrial relations legislation that the Labor government has been trying to pass is some of the most radical in decades. If this government gets what it wants—or should I say, what its union masters want—small business and the economy will suffer. Like most legislation from the Labor Party, it's small business that gets hit hardest because under Labor governments small businesses are on their own.
One of the most dangerous parts of Labor's new industrial relations bill is the prospect of multi-employer bargaining. If it goes ahead, small business will face bargaining costs of $14,638. Don't take my word for it: this is according to the department's regulatory impact statement to the bill. Medium businesses would face costs of $75,148 and large businesses $94,311. Unlike Labor and the union hacks who have never run a business in their life, I've actually run a business, and businesses know that they're hurting under this government.
Didn't you come from a union, Senator Sterle? While businesses are dealing with the Labor Party's 56 per cent increase in power prices, those opposite seem to think businesses have a spare 14 grand lying around. Well, wake up! They don't.
Labor's proposed changes will move Australia's industrial relations system from bargaining done at enterprise level, also known as bargaining with the businesses where you work, to bargaining done across multiple workplaces and potentially across a whole industry. This would massively expand the power of trade unions, allowing them to operate in businesses they currently have no connection to. This includes tens of thousands of small businesses right across Australia. Under Labor's legislation, multiple sectors will be able to engage in crippling, economy-wide strikes. Those opposite don't realise that enterprise-wide bargaining will mean industry-wide strikes and the breakdown of the Australian economy.
Don't you worry, Senator Ayres. It's my time to be on my feet, so you can be quiet. If the Labor Party gets its way, the union thugs that they protect will be breaking down the doors to small businesses and telling them what to do. That's what the Labor Party are all about: command and control. Their attitude is: 'We know how to run your life and run your business better than you do.' Guess what? You don't.
To conclude, Labor's dangerous industrial relations changes will mean more strikes and fewer jobs, giving unions unprecedented access to small businesses, which will lead to the death of hundreds of those small businesses.
