Real wages have gone backwards, erasing a decade of pay rises since this government took office. This data is up to March, so it doesn’t reflect the current inflation rise. So, if Australians feel they’re working harder and getting less, it’s because they are.
Net zero policies are driving up electricity prices, which in turn affect the entire economy. Every sector—whether farming, manufacturing, or retail—uses power, and rising energy costs inevitably get passed on. In the March quarter, business bankruptcies reached record levels, with the construction sector hit particularly hard. Housing construction is declining, yet the government continues to bring in more immigrants.
This government has clearly failed in its economic management—there is no trust left.
Transcript
The Reserve Bank has just announced the inflation rate for May as four per cent, which is above the expected rate of 3.8 per cent. What’s even worse is that the underlying inflation rate, which had been trending downward, has now increased to 4.4 per cent. Inflation is surging, and it’s entirely the fault of the Albanese Labor government. Today we heard Finance Minister Gallagher again bragging about this government’s track record on protecting wages. The data does not support that statement.
According to the Australia Institute, real wages of everyday Australians have fallen from $52,900 to $52,080 since this government came to power. That figure has been calculated to March this year, so it doesn’t take into account what is now rising inflation. If everyday Australians feel like they’re working harder and going backwards, it’s because you are. The inflation spike was entirely predictable. Net zero measures continue to force up electricity prices, which cascade throughout our entire economy. Every business, from farming to manufacturing to retailing, uses power. Any increase in power has to be passed on, and this is what we’re now seeing.
One Nation calls on the government to abandon the insane net zero transition before the economy falls apart entirely, catastrophically. In the March quarter, business bankruptcies were at record levels. Bankruptcies in the building sector were especially high. Housing construction is not rising; it’s falling. Yet this government continues to bring in more new-arrival immigrants, which is inherently inflationary. The economy as a whole is just barely staying out of recession, with GDP growth at 0.2 per cent, a figure that shows the destruction that net zero is causing to our entire economy. I hope the Reserve Bank holds its nerve and doesn’t raise interest rates. If it raises rates, everyday Australians will be doing it even tougher. What a mess. This government is not fit to govern—no trust.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/moNqzCzmUQ4/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2024-08-12 09:39:322024-08-12 09:39:37Stagnant Wages, Skyrocketing Energy Costs and Record Business Failures
As the cost of living increases out of control, the number of businesses going broke (insolvency) is on the rise. Each of these insolvencies is a tragic story of people losing their jobs and facing uncertainty about whether they will have money to put food on the table.
Ditch the net-zero policies that are driving up energy costs, cut red tape and make it easier for family businesses to survive. That’s One Nation’s plan!
Transcript
I support Senator Hughes’s motion and agree that the Albanese Labor government has failed to grow the economy and, with that lack of growth, failed to restore Australia’s standard of living. A stable economic environment is necessary for a new business to open and to flourish and for existing businesses to weather the many storms this government has engineered. Labor’s interest rate rises are due directly to Labor’s wasteful spending and energy price inflation resulting from pointless net zero policies. The Prime Minister and Energy Minister Bowen have failed to provide electricity at prices people and businesses can afford, directly driving inflation. Every new piece of legislation in this place seems designed to strangle the last breath out of businesses. Live sheep exports are today’s casualty.
It should come as no surprise that data from ASIC shows there were 1,245 business insolvencies in May 2024. This is a 44 per cent increase on last year and a 122 per cent increase across the life of the Albanese Labor government. To put it simply this government is sending business broke. One thousand two hundred and forty-five insolvent businesses in just one month is not a statistic; it’s a human tragedy. These are everyday Australians who had a go at lifting themselves up, who were employing others in their community and who were paying tax to support the government agenda. Now their businesses are gone along with their ability to provide for their families, free from reliance on the government. Business confidence is down because this government has talked it down with an unending recipe of doom and gloom about global boiling and sustainability requiring reductions in living standards. There’s no hope in this message, just unending misery. It’s a lie. No wonder businesses give up.
One Nation believes abundance is not a dirty word. It’s natural for people to seek abundance and to share abundance. With One Nation, Australians can and will restore prosperity to this beautiful country of ours.
Reports indicate loan sharks are ripping off small businesses, charging them up to 140% interest on loans through a number of loopholes on our regulations. The contracts are often impossible to understand and leave mum and dad shops struggling to keep their head above water.
I asked the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (ASBFEO) about this wave of dodgy activity and to see what he was hearing in complaints from businesses.
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing. Firstly, I want to thank you for always being a very clear and articulate advocate for the small businesses in this country. Without them, this country dies. I think many people forget that. Is the ombudsman aware of the recent ABC coverage of small businesses who have suffered when entering business loans?
Mr Billson: Yes.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you able to elaborate on some of the key protections that are afforded to consumer borrowers under the National Consumer Credit Protection Act?
Mr Billson: I was a bit worried that after your opening sentence there’d be a ‘however’—thankfully, not.
Senator ROBERTS: No. There’s no ‘however’.
Mr Billson: A lot of small business borrowings aren’t covered by those consumer protections. There is a set of arrangements about diligence and a capacity to repay. To put it simply, a lot of small businesses borrow with the aim to change their circumstances, whereas the consumer framework looks at capacity to service. Having said that, there are then codes that sit around it—the banking code—and there’s a code subcommittee particularly focused on small and agribusiness lending. AFCA is involved as well, where the lender has agreed to be bound by the AFCA scheme, so where a dispute or a grievance arises they can go to AFCA.
Senator ROBERTS: This is consumer?
Mr Billson: No, this is specifically about small business. And then we deal with what I call fringe financiers. There are quite a number of financiers who are outside the AFCA framework that can behave quite appallingly, and we try and seek a resolution to those circumstances, mindful we have no powers to direct a particular outcome.
Senator ROBERTS: Which of the key protections that are afforded to consumer borrowers are not available to small business borrowers?
Mr Billson: There’s the responsible lending provision—capital ‘r’, capital ‘l’—where there’s a duty to look at expenditure patterns and the like for consumers. Those things aren’t expressly required of lenders to a small business. Some apply a similar framework. There are certain diligence expectations, and then there are safeguards and protections captured by the banking code.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware of small business borrowers paying effective interest rates up to 140 per cent?
Mr Billson: We are aware of some examples. We’ve had other examples where punitive penalties have been applied. We’ve even had examples where some borrowers have approached a broker to look at finance options, not proceeded with the arrangement and then the broker’s introduced them to a lender that’s had quite extraordinary terms and conditions, and, even though they haven’t proceeded with that interest in accessing finance, the financier has then said, ‘Here’s a several thousand dollar bill you can pay, and if you don’t pay that, we’ll put a caveat on your home.’ Some of that outrageous conduct, we raised through FRAG, the Federal Regulatory Agency Group—a group that I chair, looking at various regulators and what can be done about these things for those people that sit outside things like the AFCA scheme and aren’t responsive to the banking code and other safeguards.
Senator ROBERTS: Are you aware of small businesses taking out high-interest business loans because of tax debts? Can you comment on that?
Mr Billson: I saw reports of that. If I could check with Ms Collins—I don’t believe we’ve had any particular cases of that character, but we are aware of reports of it. We are also aware that a number of small businesses are feeling very distressed about the return to more regular tax debt recovery activities by the ATO. We also work closely with the Small Business Debt Helpline. Interestingly, 30 per cent of the small businesses seeking help from the Small Business Debt Helpline have been in business for more than 10 years, so there’s something happening, and it’s some of the headwinds I pointed to in my opening remarks, which I understand are being circulated.
Senator ROBERTS: In your experience in assisting small businesses, can you offer a view on what would be the consequences for small-business borrowers if the National Consumer Credit Protection Act were extended to cover small-business loans?
Mr Billson: My concern would be that it may further limit access to credit at a time when too many small businesses already explain that they have difficulty accessing the finance that they need. Finance is the oxygen of enterprise, and if we make it too hard to get, the consequence is that we constrain that economic activity. A number of other mechanisms provide some safeguards—the Australian Banking Association has lodged a proposal for a revised banking code. We’re very active in trying to make sure that has appropriate safeguards in it for small-business borrowers. The other part of our concern is about lenders who operate outside those more established channels, and that’s more often the type of matter that’s raised with our organisation.
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, I appreciate your succinctness.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) assures me that as Australia has very good sunshine and solar energy is the cheapest form of energy on the planet, we can expect to have cheap electricity. That’s nonsense because they don’t take into account all of the extra costs of firming, storage, extra transmission lines and general unreliability. Any Australian who looks at their electricity bill knows solar isn’t cheaper.
I was even more surprised to learn about the agency’s support of solar in renewable iron and steel manufacturing on a massive scale. The idea of such energy intensive industrial process being powered by cheap solar, which is currently too expensive and unreliable for Australian households, is pipe dream stuff.
This government is driving Australia off the cliff and is in the drivers seat essentially saying – “It’s not my job to think about the cliff, I’m just driving the car.” The idea of a net zero future with wind and solar providing base-load power and creating “green steel” is not real.
The net zero pipe dream is a nation killing fantasy that is already hurting the regions, ruining small business and driving up the cost-of-living all over Australia.
Small Business Association of Australia Conference, Melbourne, 22 September 2023
Senator Malcolm Roberts:
Thank you, Andrew. And I want to thank the organisers of this wonderful conference. And I want to thank every single person in this room for being here. It is a delight to be here with you. I enjoyed the two days up in Surfers a couple of years ago, Anne, fabulous. So I’ve decided to stay the whole two days as I did in Surfers.
I also want to acknowledge every Australian and I want to acknowledge every human, I’m very, very pro-human. Business and politics are all about humans. We seem to forget that at times. And people, I want to remind people of this, our constitution is the only constitution anywhere in the world in which the people have voted for the constitution. Did you know that? The only constitution. And who’s in charge of the constitution? The people of Australia. Very, very important.
Before speaking on industrial relations, there’s news I need to discuss. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday called for a review into the Commonwealth Government’s response to Covid. It breaks his promise to us all before the last election for a Royal Commission. The review lacks the power to compel witness testimony, to discover documents and lacks the power of indemnity that a Royal Commission enjoys, including the ability to protect witnesses. Extremely important.
Australia’s Covid response substantially damaged our whole small business sector and transferred $4 trillion of wealth from everyday Australians to the world’s most wealthy billionaires. The Albanese government has sold out small business owners hoping to see a Royal Commission make recommendations to protect small business next time, sold them out. Instead of justice and a clear statement of intent to defend his constituents’ freedom, the Prime Minister has framed an inquiry that will endorse the actions taken. In so doing, he encourages our autocrats to exceed their moral and legal authority even more next time.
This review is a dark day for small business and for those who understand that transparency and due process are the bedrock of a democratic society. And I made a promise in the Senate three years ago that I would hound down those responsible for this attack on small business and on personal freedom right across the country. Today I commit, I recommit to my promise to those responsible for the atrocities of COVID, I will hound you down.
Now turning to the point, to the hot topic of the moment, Labour’s deceitfully named, Closing Loopholes Bill, I’ll discuss that in the bigger picture. Labor’s set of reforms is just the next episode in a long list of policies crushing small business. The appalling state of our industrial relations system though isn’t only the Labour government’s fault. The slow motion car crash known as our industrial relations system has been unfolding for decades.
So let’s step back for a minute and assess the wider picture of industrial relations and how we got here. The Fair Work Act is 1,265 pages long. Double what it was just two years ago. It doesn’t even come in one book. For printing, it’s now split into two volumes. The government’s so-called Closing the Loopholes Bill is an additional 284 pages of new chapters and changes, plus an explanatory memorandum. That’s 521 pages of brief explanation of what the government is trying to do with each clause of its 284 page bill to change the 1,265 page act.
Now don’t feel ashamed if you’re struggling to keep up. Drafters want that. They want you confused. They want us confused. The Fair Work Act hasn’t been crafted with small business in mind. The act is littered with exceptions for small business, which is an implicit admission that the requirements are simply too onerous and burdensome for business to function.
In a sign of how out of touch our industrial relations system is, in some sections a small business is defined as less than 15 employees. One of our staff team in the Senate pointed out, the corner bakery that he worked for in high school had more than 15 staff. So how did we get here? Anne talked yesterday about the need for policy change. Anyone in business knows change is necessary. So why hasn’t it happened?
The Fair Work Act, to be blunt, is a Frankenstein child of decades of lobbying from what I call the industrial relations club. Remember this, the industrial relations club. The armies of consultants, industrial relations lawyers, union bosses, large industry associations and multinational corporations. Recognise them? All of these players benefit from industrial relations being made more complex, not easier. The lawyers want companies forced to employ them to make sense of the act. That means more fees. If employees and employers were instead allowed to talk with each other to agree on pay, union bosses wouldn’t be able to insert themselves in the middle and extract their pound of flesh, their cold, hard cash. Union bosses like to rope everyone into the expensive and deliberately difficult bargaining system.
The large industry associations and multinational corporations like to keep industrial relations complex. Complexity helps big companies keep out competition, especially from small business. The multinational corporations, the Bunnings, the Woolworths, the BPs can afford teams and teams of lawyers to make sure they’re ticking every box in the Fair Work Act no matter how complicated. Yet even they still get it wrong.
So what hope have small businesses got? Small operators simply don’t have the resources or the time to comply with all of the requirements that come with giving someone a job today. We see it every day. Many small businesses giving up and closing shop. You mentioned that yesterday, Anne, and you did it so well.
This is in large part due to the complexity that the industrial relations club has fabricated and forced on us. To summarise how we got here with this Frankenstein industrial relations framework, IR lawyers, industrial relations lawyers, like their fat fees, the more complex the legislation, the more money they make. Union bosses need ways to insert themselves into every agreement. Big corporations are fine with complexity because they can afford to comply and they know their competition in small business can’t. All these groups have a lot of money and a lot of lobbying power. They’re the ones making submissions to parliamentary inquiries, appearing in the media and lobbying politicians. They steer the national industrial relations conversation.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country barely get a shoe in the door. In this area, I acknowledge the great work of groups like the Small Business Association of Australia with this wonderful conference. Thank you so much Anne, and your team, marvellous work.
Unfortunately, the huge lobbying power of the Canberra industrial relations club can drown out the good work of those few small business groups. In the end, union bosses, big corporates, consultants and IR lawyers all get a piece of the pie. The interests of small business and the productivity of our country are left in the dust. That’s how we get here and got here. As comedian George Carlin said, “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it.”
Now let’s generally discuss what we’re facing in the Albanese Labor government’s Closing the Loopholes Bill, the so-called Closing the Loopholes Bill. A chief concern that I have is that this bill is going to drive up costs for the small businesses which can least afford it. With no or little benefit for workers. There’s been little meaningful consultation with the small business sector. In fact, there’s been almost no consultation with anyone from this government.
The Labor government resisted sending this bill to an inquiry with enough time to investigate the effects of all the 805 pages of law and explanations. Thankfully, One Nation, as part of the Senate cross bench with the opposition, extended the inquiry report date to February, ensuring this bill will be properly investigated. We still need time to fully appreciate this bill’s effects, although an initial look makes very unpleasant reading.
The new bill includes changes to the definition of a casual worker. Although this may be beneficial, it will be the third definition in three years. Another example of just how off the rails is industrial relations. We face comprehensive changes to the so-called gig economy, blurring the distinction, the clear distinction between contractors and employees. For decades, businesses have relied upon well-defined tests and court decisions to understand the difference between employees and contractors. This bill seeks to introduce an entirely new third category. How this new category of employee-like contractors fits into our economy is still not clear. And it’s something we will investigate in coming months. It’s clear though that Labour has not thought it through, with many concerns already raised about the impact on anyone that holds an ABN.
Among the concerns raised with me already are whether business owners will be forced to make an assessment and pay their contractors’ superannuation and leave entitlements. Do these changes mean for example, a sole operator hairdresser will have to add a superannuation and leave loading as a line item on their invoice because their clients have regular appointments and will be treated as employees? Does a web developer who may be on a small retainer to update a small business website have to charge superannuation and leave loading to their client? Taken together across all the suppliers of services a business may use, how many full-time equivalent positions will a small business now have to in effect directly employ with all the overheads that entails? This is madness.
Many basic and concerning questions like this must be answered as we pick apart each chapter of this bill. And I’ll get onto the reason why they’re doing this. It’s got nothing to do with the reasons they’re saying. Even without the results of the coming inquiry, some portions of this bill are clearly wrong.
In particular, the potential open slather that this bill will enable for union bosses to intervene in the normal operation of small businesses. On the face of it, union bosses may be able to enter premises for the sole purpose of recruiting membership. If a union boss suspects wage theft or underpayment, they would have permission without notice to enter premises, including homes. How do we validate that an overzealous union boss’s suspicions are legitimate? And why should these powers be available to a union boss, not to the enforcement body, the Fair Work Commission? If a union boss abuses these powers, the only way a business could immediately challenge it is with a costly court application and lawyers’ fees. This used to be the job of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the ABCC, that took misbehaving union bosses to court. Of course for doing such a good job and taking the burden off businesses, the Labour government disbanded the Commission.
Casual definition, gig economy contractors, union bosses powers are just some of the issues we’ve seen in Labor’s Closing the Loophole Bill. All 805 pages of law and explanation will require careful evaluation and we hope the Senate inquiry will give us the opportunity to do that so that we can weigh up all the pros and cons.
Now it’s true that there are some measures in this bill making it easier for first responders to receive PTSD compensation, protection for victims of domestic violence and measures to control silica health harms and the enhancement of industrial manslaughter laws that One Nation may be able to support once we more closely examine the legislation.
On principle, I will always stand for free enterprise over the government nanny state dictating every detail of what we can and can’t do in our lives and businesses. The key to pulling our country’s economy out of tough times is unleashing small businesses to do what you do best: delivering goods and services and employing everyday Australians to grow the wealth of our nation. Decades of regressive governments have done the opposite. It’s only gotten harder to make things and employ people, and small business feels that the most.
We’re witnessing one of the greatest wealth transfers in our history happening right before our eyes. Government policies are ripping money out of small businesses, out of our local communities and pumping up the profits of multinational corporations. Whether or not it’s the government’s intention to do this, it’s the undeniable chilling result of their policies. It’s fact.
Everyone remembers when every small business had to shut down during the deceitful Covid mismanagement. Yet Bunnings was allowed to stay open. Coles and Woolworths had record revenues, while hundreds of thousands of small businesses folded, families were destroyed. It’s a decades long attack, a decades long attack on small business and communities with major parties on both sides of the political aisle beholden to vested interests.
Our country’s industrial relations laws are harming the workers. Australians have always been told that this country’s industrial relations trade-off is to pay to protect workers. That’s why you put up with the pain. In reality, our current industrial relations framework makes it harder to do business while failing to protect workers. The complex powers of legislation often become box ticking exercises rather than genuine protections. Instead of fixing the cracks that workers are falling through, more complex legislation creates more loopholes for the big corporates with their teams of lawyers to make.
And as I’ve exposed in the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland, the mining union bosses are complicit, making money off stripping workers’ entitlements and basic protections. Union bosses stealing from workers, with the help of government and major corporations.
The fundamental problem is that no one can imagine and create an encyclopaedia of laws that will ever perfectly apply to every business, every employee in every situation. Yet the government says it can.
A shameful case I’ve been pursuing for over four years proves our industrial relations framework is not protecting workers, despite the huge burdens the system is putting on small businesses. The very union bosses who are meant to protect coal miners in the Hunter Valley have thrown workers to the wolves. Simon Turner was a miner injured on site. Under the Black Coal Award, he’s entitled to a safety net, compensation and minimum rates of pay. Instead, he was employed as a casual under a fraudulently endorsed enterprise agreement that union bosses and labour hire companies signed. And that is what this bill is protecting. There’s no loophole, all they have to do is enforce the Fair Work Act. The enterprise agreement stripped Simon of 40% of the pay he would have been entitled to in a permanent position. Workers’ compensation and sick pay gone. In fact paying less than the award and national employment standards.
The Hunter CFMEU entered into a written agreement with labour hire company Chandler Macleod to not pursue the Chandler Macleod company over any infringements of workers’ rights in relation to the agreement. Signed in writing. Soon after, almost half a million dollars changed hands from the multinational employer to the union.
Simon has been living without lawful compensation for nine years while totally and permanently disabled as a result of what his union did. I’ve been trying for four years to have these dodgy dealings punished and Simon and thousands of workers to get justice. It only needs enforcement of the current Fair Work Act using the Fair Work Commission and the Fair Work Ombudsman. Yet even with the thousands of pages of industrial relations law and rock solid evidence of these issues, no one in their entire industrial relations system has yet been able to deliver justice to Simon. No one. Nor justice to thousands of miners. This is just one of the examples I’ve seen in our warped industrial relations system with its thousands of pages of laws and regulations failing to protect workers. Deliberately.
Those in our industrial relations system can’t see the forest for the trees. Don’t despair though. Despite all the problems I’ve talked about, I don’t want you to think I’m a pessimist or a cynic. I’m angry. And I’m determined. But I’m not a pessimist. In fact, my staff team are often gobsmacked about situations I see as optimistic and hopeful because I have enormous faith in humans.
It’s true that small business is one of the toughest jobs. It’s true that the government is making it much harder. To make things better, we first need to acknowledge the reality in which we find ourselves. Yet I believe we can unlock a prosperous and abundant Australia. And the proof of that lies in the facts and our history. Don’t believe it? We’ve already done it.
Early last century, Australia had the world’s highest per capita income in the world. I’ll say that again. Highest in the world. Australia wasn’t just punching above our weight, we were world champions. And simultaneously we were building infrastructure still in use. And students of history will be aware of the United States Lend-Lease programme for World War II. The Lend-Lease programme provided the war winning materials and products to the allied forces against Nazi Germany. What fewer people know about is reverse Lend-Lease in which Australia instead provided materials to the United States. In the 1940s with only seven million people Australia provided in today’s dollars $15 billion worth of wartime products and materials. That’s what this country did. And I see an honourable former service man right here. Thank you, Warren. A huge contribution of things we made here in Australia.
All of this was in addition to the contribution of troops we sent away to foreign lands. Australia today has enough energy resources, coal, oil, gas, uranium alone to keep our lights on for thousands of years and export globally. We are the number one exporters of energy in the world. That’s before we discover even more deposits. We are the world’s largest exporters of energy, yet we cannot use it here. Our country’s potential is nearly unlimited. We don’t need to send iron ore and coal mined here to China so they can use it to make steel wind turbines that we buy back from them and ship back to Australia and increase our power prices. We can make what we need here and forget about wind turbines. Just use the coal to make cheap electricity.
We can be the best in the world again, it just needs putting people with guts into parliament. Politicians who aren’t afraid to upset the vested lobbying interests, and instead have the country’s interest at heart. People not afraid to run a fire through our current industrial relations system and clean out the dead wood. People willing to call out the government’s destruction of small business. People willing to point out the United Nations net zero climate scam has taken us from the world’s cheapest power without wind and solar to now among the highest prices due to wind and solar. People willing to point out that the Reserve Bank is raising interest rates to send mortgage holders broke while trying to fight the inflation the Reserve Bank caused due to printing $500 billion out of thin air to respond to the government’s gross mismanagement on Covid. People willing to point out that we wouldn’t have a housing crisis in this country if net immigration wasn’t running at 460,000 a year, plus another 540,000 student visas, plus working visas totaling 1.2 million arrivals a year.
Now do you see why housing prices are shooting through roof and rentals are increasing? Every time I’m listening to constituents, to business owners like you, whether on the streets of the city or the streets of small rural towns, I see our economy’s heroes.
Please make submissions to the Senate inquiry, and write and call and visit your local MPs. They work for you. They’ve forgotten that. Just remind them. I see you, Australia’s small business owners, you will save this country and our economy just doing your job. That’s how you’ll save this country. I just want to get government out of the way so you can keep doing your job and so you can keep the rewards you are due. Thank you very much.
https://i0.wp.com/www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/MicrosoftTeams-image-1.jpg?fit=1440%2C960&ssl=19601440Sheenagh Langdonhttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSheenagh Langdon2023-10-03 12:27:142023-10-04 15:04:27My Speech at Small Business Association of Australia 2023
I’ve been raising the issue of the exploitation of miners for years. Miners and small businesses need to be heard because they are the losers in this ongoing rort. We need an extensive inquiry into it now.
The Fair Work Act is designed for the “industrial relations club,” not for workers and not for small businesses.
I’ve written twice about this issue to the previous member for the Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon. I’ve also written and hand delivered a letter to Dan Repacholi’s office. I asked them to get involved. Both have failed to respond, yet they stand up and talk in this chamber about closing the loophole.
There is no loophole! There is only people not doing their job and letting down miners and small businesses.
When will these people find it in themselves to care, or at least do something about the fact that everyday Australians are being ripped off and the authorities are enabling it?
Transcript
Thank you, President, Senator Birmingham. For four years, I have been raising the issue of the exploitation of the permanent-casual rort in central Queensland miners and Hunter Valley miners—four years!
I have written twice to the previous member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon. I have written once and hand delivered to Daniel Repacholi’s office a letter asking them to get involved. They both have not replied. They never replied. They stood up and spoke in this chamber about closing the loophole. There is no loophole. We know what the cause of this is. There is no loophole; it is people not doing their jobs.
Four years and Labor has not done a thing. They put the crow bar through the spokes to stop me. This is an insult to miners. We need an inquiry that is going to have hearings in Central Queensland and in the Hunter because these miners need to be heard.
We’ll show you where the loophole is. There’s a huge loophole but it’s not the loophole the Labor Party is talking about. This bill has an Explanatory Memorandum 520-something pages long because it’s a cover-up bill. The bill itself is up to 240 pages.
I’ve been talking in this chamber on many occasions about how the Fair Work Act is already complex, intricate and designed for the IR club, not for workers—and not for small business. This will make it far worse. We need to have a complete and thorough inquiry of it, and extensive scrutiny.
I will not be supporting the government’s amendment of the coalition’s amendment.
Miners need to be heard and small business, in particular, need to be heard because they’re the two losers from the Fair Work Act, due to its complexity and its prescriptiveness.
So I will not be supporting the Labor government’s amendment of the coalition amendment. I will support the coalition amendment.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/Bsl5tF7GqWY/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Sheenagh Langdonhttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSheenagh Langdon2023-09-25 14:19:082023-09-25 14:56:23Miners and Businesses from QLD and the Hunter Valley Let Down by the Fair Work Act
Before the election Labor promised to give grants to students who want to start-up a new business.
They’ve broken that promise and will funnel money to universities to run undefined “start-up” courses which will only leave students in real debt. It’s a Labor plan to funnel more money to woke universities instead of helping students.
Transcript
As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I now speak on the Education Legislation Amendment (Startup Year and Other Measures) Bill 2023. This bill does three things. Schedule 1 creates an entirely new form of HECS called STARTUP-HELP, or Startup Year help. Schedule 2 increases the funding cap in the Australian Research Council Act. And schedule 3 adds Avondale University as a provider under the Higher Education Support Act.
Schedules 2 and 3 are relatively uncontroversial and should be passed before the next financial year. Deceptively, though, Labor has tied those time-sensitive measures with the controversial program in schedule 1 so that it can be whisked through. Deceit—yet another example of government deceit. Let’s consider schedule 1. Let’s cut through the deceit!
This bill started off with the announcement of an initial consultation paper and a student survey to seek the views of current students and recent graduates on the proposed design. It sounds like a great start, and yet the government has not published the outcomes of the survey and it has not published the submissions to the consultation paper it started. We only know about some submissions—in fact, only those submissions whose submitters published them themselves! Of these, many expressed concern about the lack of detail around four things: the criteria for inclusion of eligible programs; how students would be selected; how the allocation of 2,000 places would be distributed; and what the funding could be spent on. Those are pretty critical things and the government wants to hide them.
Given these concerns, it would make sense to have an initial pilot program. Many submissions appeared to agree with this and it was even suggested in the consultation paper. Yet, no, the government has decided that it won’t do this, instead pushing straight ahead with the full implementation of an expensive and undefined, untested program, and the creation of an entirely new category of debt. The program doesn’t make sense. As even the Australian Technology Network group of universities suggested, if you want to encourage startups, give the money directly to students, not to universities.
That was the government’s election promise—to provide grants for startups. Instead we have this Startup Year program, where money will be going to universities. If someone has a startup idea, under this program the government won’t give that person money to invest in their idea, to develop research, to produce prototypes or to get market research. Instead, the government will give money to universities, and the student will get left with a HECS debt afterwards. Reading about this program, readers might think that the intention isn’t to actually support startup businesses. People might think the intention is to support universities with yet another new cash cow and to funnel extra money towards them through an entirely new type of debt.
Schedule 2 of the bill provides updated funding caps. The minister explained these new funding caps as innocent indexation adjustments. Looking at the table provided in the explanatory memorandum, we have to ask: what the hell is the basis for the indexation rate? It certainly doesn’t seem to be the CPI, the consumer price index. For 2022-23, the increase is two per cent. For 2023-24, the increase is 4.8 per cent. That is 1½ times higher. For 2024-25, the increase is—wait for it—7.5 per cent. For 2025-26, the increase is 2.46 per cent.
If these increases were in line with CPI indexation, we would expect the larger indexation to apply in 2022-23—but no. Instead, the 7.46 per cent indexation won’t come into effect until 2024-25 after two years of additional indexation has already been applied. So you’re compounding the interest. Anyone familiar with how compound interest works will recognise that pushing the larger increase further down the line actually results in a larger increase to the funding. These increases amount to a significant additional 17 per cent or $137 million of taxpayer money going into the Australian Research Council’s budget over the forward estimates. It’s hard to consider these amounts as innocent indexation adjustments given their size and the deceptive way they’ve been applied. There’s that word again; it shrouds this government—deceit.
I note that Senator Henderson intends to move amendments that in effect split the bill and set up a pilot program. Senator Henderson’s amendments would carve out the Startup Year program from the funding and Avondale University matters which must be dealt with before July. They would establish a proper pilot program. This is appropriate. Let’s deal with the time-sensitive matters now and then have a proper debate about this back-of-the-envelope idea from Labor for state sanctioned startups.
To properly encourage startups in this country, we need to fix the broken taxation system and make sure energy is as cheap as humanly possible. The government is crippling startups by making it difficult to start up.
Shovelling money instead towards universities and building a HECS debt will do nothing to encourage business in this country. It’s a transfer of wealth from students to universities.
We won’t let the Albanese government hold us to ransom, bundling up necessary amendments with radical programs. If not amended and if it remains dishonest and deceitful, One Nation will oppose this bill.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers, with no real-world business experience, no firsthand knowledge of free markets and no life outside the machine of politics has decided to tear down Australia’s economic system and rebuild it—hammer in one hand and sickle in the other.
The Treasurers, “Jimbonomics”, form of command and control will only benefit Labor’s billionaire masters.
Transcript
I speak as a servant to the many different people who make up our amazing one Queensland community. I have not yet had a chance to make fun of Treasurer Jim Chalmers’s ode to soviet glory titled ‘Capitalism after the crisis’, so let me start there. A Treasurer with no real-world business experience, no firsthand knowledge of free markets and no life outside the machine of politics has decided to tear down Australia’s economic system and rebuild it—hammer in one hand and sickle in the other. Reinventing capitalism is not visionary, as Jim Chalmers hopes; it’s a cliche.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Cox):
Senator Roberts, can I just remind you to address people in the other place by their correct titles.
Senator ROBERTS: Mr Jim Chalmers?
Senator ROBERTS: Worse, it confuses political theory with economics. The Treasurer has studied only one of those, and it’s not economics. Mr Jim Chalmers has studied political science and now sees every problem as a political one. The Treasurer knows nothing about economics and clearly dismisses the need for it. How ironic that Mr Jim Chalmers’s now legendary article opens with a quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitis, when he says:
No man ever steps in the same river twice. For it’s not the same river, and he’s not the same man.
What? It’s not without merit that Heraclitis is known as the ‘obscure philosopher’. This nonsense may make the Treasurer sound smart at a dinner party for pseudo-intellectual lefties, yet, to everyday Australians struggling with the rising cost of living, falling real wages and a housing shortage, it’s nothing more than intellectual masturbation.
When you hear ‘command capitalism’ from the Treasurer, what he’s really saying to the Australian people is this: ‘I don’t trust you. I don’t respect your choices. I don’t recognise your freedom. Everything you have belongs to the state, and you will do as we command.’
Commentators refer to this fantasy as Jimbonomics. That’s their view. In reality, it’s about threat, force and regulation designed to herd businesses into supporting fringe activism that rewards the elites at the expense of everyday people. It’s about control over ‘we the people’. Rather than the state owning everything directly, all the wealth in the Treasurer’s economy will be owned by the billionaires that own the UN and the World Economic Forum.
Already, woke politics has engineered a rapid descent of employee privacy, with governments ranking businesses based upon the race, religion, sexual preference, gender and disability of their staff. Human beings have become commodities in the implementation phase of the great reset, the new world order.
The recent Workplace Health and Safety Amendment Bill 2023 from this government actually requires an employer to know the vaccine status of their employees and to bar those people from the workplace if they are not vaccinated—inhuman. Pfizer says, ‘Cheers for that bill. Thank you.’ Treasurer Chalmers has lit a fire at the heart of parliament that seeks to destroy everything good and prosperous that everyday Australians, across the 235 years of Western settlement in Australia, have built.
As many have said in criticism of the Treasurer’s treatise on communism, there can be no democracy without capitalism, and there is no capitalism without the free market. It’s time we started asking if Labor is planning on reimagining democracy itself. Is it? The Albanese government have introduced legislation that clearly shows this is their intention, so at least the Treasurer has been honest about his intentions.
Listen to this. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Energy Price Relief Plan) Bill 2022 was nationalising the gas industry. The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation Bill 2023 represents the government distorting the free market, taking it upon themselves to direct investment in manufacturing, using government money, and to stop key investments in our future.
The Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting) Amendment Bill 2022 imposes egregious controls on industry, with ministerial direction to provide all of the details in the future—unfettered power. I’m sick of these bills that are all shopping bag and no shopping.
It’s not the purpose of the state to give the government of the day a bill with nothing actually in it so the government can fill in all the important bits later, as it wants. Shame on the Greens and the teals for going along with this insult to the Westminster system of government. It must now be clear that George Carlin was absolutely correct: it’s a club, and everyday people, everyday Australians, are not in it. Australians have never wanted the economy to be subservient to its political leaders. We have never wanted that.
Command capitalism is anticompetitive. It allows the Albanese government to decide which Australian businesses get to succeed and which fail. Why does Mr Jim Chalmers feel the need to reinvent capitalism? Why does he feel that he is the first Treasurer in Australian history that must take this step off the cliff into the abyss? I’ll tell you why. The free market doesn’t like what Labor is selling. The Australian people do not want to spend their money on inferior eco-products and self-serving CEOs who, so long as they achieve their carbon dioxide footprint, would happily see Australian families starve or freeze.
Net zero policies are all fun and games until the lights go off and the bugs are served cold because, well, gas is now selfish and the power has gone off again—so cold it is. Why is it that the only environments the Labor Party doesn’t want to help are the investment environment and the human environment? If the market doesn’t want Labor’s globalist vision, then the Prime Minister and his Treasurer must accept that. They have no right, and they were not voted into power, to dismantle capitalism, reimagine it or duct tape it to a chair in the basement.
It took Mr Jim Chalmers 6,000 words to explain that values based capitalism means, ‘You will do as we say.’ The Soviet Union fell 30 years ago, but Treasurer Chalmers is doing his best to drape its banners all over our parliament. Treasurer, give it up. Russia has. ‘Jimbonomics’, as some call it, will harm small and medium-sized businesses and transfer wealth to the people at the big end of town whose market power allows them to comply with the Treasurer’s demands. To comply is easy for them: pass the cost on to the consumer. That’s all. From the perspective of everyday Australians, green is the new red. From the perspective of the billionaires who shadow-wrote the Treasurer’s opus, green is the new gold.
The only part of the Treasurer’s opus that was not lifted from the World Economic Forum’s Great Reset was the part that was deliberately left out: you will own nothing and you will be happy. Who will own what everyday Australians are no longer allowed to own—the houses, cars, furniture and electronics? Why, it’ll be the predatory billionaires for whom Jim Chalmers is just a mouthpiece.
Commanding the market during COVID has wrecked the market. Wages are falling, inflation is out of control and economic activity is down. Exports have grown in countries that ran their economies better than we did. They have the demand and the economic strength. Now Jim Chalmers wants to use more command economics to get us out of the hole in which command economics has buried us.
Australia will not survive a second round of abuse from a treasurer who is handsy with other people’s money. Markets do not belong to Mr Jim Chalmers. They do not belong to the Labor Party. Markets belong to the people and their private businesses. They belong to Australians. The big business investors in whose pockets the Treasurer so often resides, bankers in particular, would like nothing more than to kill off their market competition and to bury the small and medium-sized businesses in a new mountain of controls and regulatory bondage.
Their deaths will be celebrated in the name of saving the planet. Make no mistake: destroying small and medium-sized businesses is the goal, not the unintended consequence, of green politics.
For Labor, dealing with a handful of powerful CEOs is easier than dealing with 10 million small directors. But those directors are the ones keeping Australia back from the brink of ruin. The safest economies in history have been the nimble free markets. It has been repeatedly proven. They adapt to disasters, bounce back after injury and seek out the best solutions for the future. Free markets are far smarter than Jim Chalmers.
The beauty of free markets is that they are smarter by far than any individual or group, and sensible, honest people know this. Competent people know this. Jim Chalmers and his Soviet counterparts are too arrogant, or maybe too fearful, to understand that basic truth. The secret to being a truly great treasurer is to step back, relinquish power, cut regulation, lower taxes and let Australians do what Australians do best: lift themselves up through their own hard work and enterprise.
Businesses are not ideological vessels to carry Labor’s election slogans, tied to the Greens and the teals. Businesses are not fodder in the insatiable thirst for more money, more power and more influence from the billionaires at the World Economic Forum. It is about control.
Shame on the Treasurer for reaching well beyond his mandate. Put your greedy paws back in your pockets. It’s time for the Treasurer and the Prime Minister to tell their billionaire masters, ‘No.’ We have one flag, we are one community and we are one nation, founded as a penal colony.
I’ll be damned if the One Nation party will let you take us back there again.
The only way to really support small business and make the country flourish is to have cheap electricity and simple regulation, two things Australia is in desperate need of.
Transcript
As servants to the people of Queensland and Australia, One Nation stands for veterans and small business. But I want to address the root cause. This is a bandaid; it’s very necessary but it’s not addressing the root cause.
Senator Gallagher has stated that self-employment is ‘an excellent alternative to traditional employment for Australians who want to use their existing skills and experience in a work environment of their choice’. We agree. Yet Labor is really anti-self-employment and soon intends to stifle small business and self-employed Australians under gig laws that could strangle the sector. They devastated California, for example, and sent people interstate. There’s nowhere to go beyond the shores of this country if Labor gets its way.
I remember what Labor, the union bosses and some dishonest, disrespectful, antihuman multinational corporations did in the Hunter Valley. Labor joined them in enabling the exploitation and abuse of casual coalminers in the Hunter, and when I tried to stand up for them the Labor member of parliament for the Hunter at the time, Mr Joel Fitzgibbon, misrepresented me and the problems, apparently to hide the problems. That perpetuated the abuse of workers and the hurting of workers. Labor does not care about workers. Modern Labor cares about getting Green votes in the inner cities.
Everyday Australians are now suffering from 2½ years of COVID mismanagement, and it is ongoing. Labor wasn’t the federal government during that time, but Labor was in power in the states, and the states and the federal government worked together, hand in hand, to destroy the productive capacity of this country, not only over the last 2½ years but over the last 78 years, since 1944. Labor wants to phase out the coal industry and jobs in the coal sector and related sectors. The Labor-Greens coalition in the Senate is hell-bent on doing that. Labor is in favour of eroding our rights and freedoms and increasing rents, house prices, energy prices and debt. There is a lack of much-needed tax reform and economic reform. That needs to be comprehensive reform. As I said a minute ago, Australia’s productive capacity is being destroyed and has been in the process of being destroyed for 78 years.
In uncertain times, such as I’ve just described, much, much more needs to be done to support small business and the self-employed. Yes, we agree that starting a new enterprise or a self-employment assistance program is a help to some people, particularly hardworking vets who have earned the support, but they’re up against it in the form of the taxation system, energy prices, lack of infrastructure and capricious overregulation. All workers—not just vets—are suffering because the productive capacity of our beautiful country has been destroyed.
The economic environment has been destroyed. The government’s job is not to employ people. The government’s job is to create an environment that favours employment through people taking risks with investment and hiring workers. That’s where real jobs—sustainable jobs—come from. That’s known throughout civilisation. We must give Australians the opportunity to be free, to be their own boss and to own a business that offers them secure work and financial independence. They should be free to create, initiate and innovate, and that requires cheap energy. Labor, with its mates in the Labor-Greens coalition, are raising energy prices. We went from having the cheapest electricity sources in the world to having amongst the highest electricity prices in the world. It’s not due to resources and it’s not due to Mother Nature; it’s due entirely to mismanagement under the Liberal-Labor-Nats-Greens circus.
Not only do we need affordable, reliable and secure energy but also we need fair reward. That means we need a comprehensive reform of the tax system. Why are we letting multinational corporations off the hook, as we did with Robert Menzies’s bill in 1953 and Prime Minister Hawke’s legislation on the petroleum rent resource tax in the 1980s? Both sides have done it. Jim Killaly, the former deputy assistant commissioner of taxation in this country, who was responsible for large companies and international matters, said—and he said it in 1996 and in 2010—that 90 per cent of Australia’s large companies are foreign owned and, since 1953, have paid little or no company tax.
Meanwhile individuals in this country are paying exorbitant tax rates. The median income in this country now is $51,000. After tax, that’s around $45,000 or $46,000. The additional cost of Labor, Greens, Nationals and Liberals policy on energy—the additional cost of solar and wind subsidies and climate subsidies—is a staggering $1,300 per year. How the hell can someone earning $45,000 or $46,000 a year afford that additional cost? That’s not the cost of electricity; that’s an additional cost for solar and wind subsidies. We’re sending the country broke because of the people in this building lacking the courage to do what is right and tell the truth. Veterans need more support, and this bill is just not enough. When will Labor and the Greens do something about housing, rent, veteran suicide, agriculture, energy and inflation? Who will protect the economy and jobs? Who will create the economic environment that will enable people to invest, innovate, create and to be entrepreneurs? Who will do that? When will Labor and the Greens do something about this very issue? Who will restore the productive capacity of our country, the economic environment of our country? Labor and the Greens don’t understand.
In fact, while I enjoyed listening to Senator Allman-Payne yesterday, sharing her emotions freely, she was crying at the plight of the poor and then congratulating Senator Larissa Waters for her 12 years in the Senate when Senator Waters is directly responsible for raising the cost of electricity which is destroying the poor and raising prices through the roof in terms of inflation. That’s what’s going on: it’s complete ignorance. Contrary to that, we understand. One Nation understand the root causes and the solutions to the root causes of these problems. We are one people, we are one community and we are one magnificent country with enormous potential. We just need to become, again, one nation.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/zmn_-KOFEr0/mqdefault.jpg180320Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2022-08-03 13:30:472022-08-03 13:30:51Band-aids aren’t going to help Small Business
Small Business is the largest employer but suffers the most hardship in trying to comply with the weight of so much complex regulation. Small business is the key to getting Australia out of the mess it is in.
Let mum and dad business thrive and so will the country.
Transcript
Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
Senator Roberts.
[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you, Chair. Thank you Mr. Billson and your staff for coming.
Thank you.
[Malcolm Roberts] Small business, we know is Australia’s largest employer. It’s the engine room of our economy. The previous small business ombudsman in a report said, “A tax system that works for small business,” that was the title of the report, in February 2021 at page six, recommendation 21 stated “that the government must undertake tax reform to prohibit the ATO from charging penalties and interest issuing garnishee notices or instigating other recovery action on tax arising from a decision that is disputed”. We support this change as the ATO’s current policy could kill many struggling small businesses and it’s not fair. It’s completely unjust. On May 13th 2021, the Honourable Stuart Robert, MP, Minister for Employment Workforce Skills, Small and Family Business said in parliament that the government too would back small business over the ATO. The message is clear, in your new role as ombudsman, will you be advocating for this tax reform? And if so, what are you doing?
Yes, and yes, we are advocating for a very thoughtful use of the enormous powers the tax office has.
[Malcolm Roberts] They are enormous.
They are very substantial.
[Malcolm Roberts] They make laws basically.
Well, I mean the thing is we’ve been consistent on three fronts, Senator, one is they’ve got quite a lot of discretion about how they use it. So we’ve been trying to put a spotlight on how that discretion is exercised so that it’s consistent and thoughtful. Deputy Commissioner, Deb Jenkins, and I meet regularly about our experience with tax office interactions. I think you might’ve missed my absolutely, gripping opening remarks where I did touch on some of these issues, Senator, where we’ve had punitive penalties of 200% for late payments. Well, sorry, payments of superannuation guaranteed contributions being made in a timely way but not processed in a timely way. And that can trigger a liability. The tax office is saying to us they form a position of these are the rules. We’ve not got a lot of wiggle room with those 200% penalties. They’re now reflecting on that and dialling back that a little bit and putting more discretion that’s less punitive into their decision-making. Secondly, there’s a measure been recently announced that an aggrieved taxpayer can, seeking a decision from the AAT, can actually ask the AAT to direct the tax office to suspend recovery actions. So that you’d know well, if they judged that we were liable for a tax amount they can pursue the recovery of it even though it’s disputed. And in some cases we’ve heard that can limit the aggrieved taxpayer’s capacity to argue their own case. So we think-
[Malcolm Roberts] And to stay in business.
That’s right and so we welcome that announcement, we thought that’s a good step in the right direction. There’s also scope for me to come to our office. So if there’s a dispute a small business has with the tax office our concierge service can do three things. One, if we think it’s really odd, we can suggest to the tax office, they might want ever another look at this because we think they’ve perhaps made an error. Secondly, there is a mechanism to get fresh eyes review within the tax office so that someone else can have a look at the assessment to see where that judgement –
[Malcolm Roberts] That is a fundamental problem because the assessor can sometimes be the reviewer of the assessment.
And we were wary about how effective that measure was going to be. It was trialled initially. But the feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive from the small businesses that used it, even those that didn’t get the outcome that they wanted. So we were very, in that tax report that you’re referring to, we were urging for that to be maintained as a permanent service. So that’s there-
[Malcolm Roberts] So you’re advocating for structural change in that way?
And really a thoughtfulness around the way the tax office uses those awesome powers that it has. We surface case studies and think you know, maybe this could have been handled a bit better. Deputy Commissioner Deb Jenkins is a wonderful ally. I think the Inspector General of Taxation is doing some good work as well around understanding the nature of the tax debt. It’s often said small businesses is a big tax debt problem. Well, in total numbers, it’s a big number, but it’s spread across an awful lot of small businesses. And then there’s an awful lot more that are paying, that are fulfilling their obligations in a very timely way and that should be celebrated as well. The last one Senator is the idea of this AAT review. So we offer as part of that service and it was touched on earlier that $1.4 million administered funds we can have an aggrieved small business tax payer come to us, say they’re not happy. Say why they’re not happy. We will collate relevant material, suggest to them, maybe they might be misreading the tea leaves or we might suggest to the tax office they might’ve misread their obligations, see if we can get an outcome. That doesn’t happen, we may support and arrange a review by a tax expert, there’s about 20 around the country that we might refer, or refer that small business tax payer to where they can give an assessment of their prospects of success at the AAT. And then we may also provide a role in assisting that small business tax payer at the AAT, if they decide to proceed to that point of challenge.
[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. That’s a comprehensive reply. And I know one expert who’s dealt with tax and small business for many, many years, and also the next topic I’m gonna get onto, he estimates that the $25 billion that small business owes to the ATO comprises 60% penalty and 40% principal and interest. And of course the penalty builds on that interest. So it’s huge.
And I think there’s an Inspector General report coming out on that very matter to break up the client group tax debt and then there’s some interest in what the components are like what you described. So I’d encourage you to keep an eye out for that report, Senator, that is also a gripping read.
[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. I just mentioned the topic of my second, my second question is, what can be done to reduce industrial relations complexity for small business? The tax, sorry, the Fair Work Act is about that thick, when it’s printed out on piecec of paper, that’s horrendous for any small business employee any small business employer to get their head around it. And we need to restore the employer-employee relationship, surely.
Yeah, it’s difficult for many small businesses who want to do the right thing to know precisely what that is. I did point earlier to Senator O’Neill’s question around small business measures in the budget. One of the reg tech measures is to actually try and help small businesses navigate the award system. There’s also an advice line for small businesses that aren’t a member of an industry association. They’re not of a size where they’ve got an HR professional that they can get some advice. Our agency has also put out a report about simplification and for the purposes of full disclosure, Senator, I actually authored a report for the Fair Work Commissioner judge, his Honour Justice Ian Ross, about practical steps I thought could be taken within the current law as it is to make the system work better for smaller employers.
[Malcolm Roberts] Could we get a copy of that?
Yeah, That also is a good read,
[Malcolm Roberts] If you could send that on notice.
and I will make sure you receive that.
[Malcolm Roberts] Send that on notice? That addresses my next question, which is that, what better ways are there for small business that are not limited just to simply developing a small business award? That’d be one thing on the list, I’m sure. But are they contained in your list?
Yeah, there was, yes, it didn’t actually advocate for small business award.
[Malcolm Roberts] What are the measures?
It actually advocated for a small business annexure to each award. That was basically the essential elements that a smaller employer needed to turn their mind to. And it made some recommendations around the effectiveness of the fair dismissal code. It did speak to the formation of a small business division within the Fair Work Commission so that their procedures are right sized and relevant to small employers. It also called out the impact of the club. Dare I say, industry associations, the legal profession and unions that actually revel in the complexity, it makes their insights and expertise very valuable.
[Malcolm Roberts] And the employer industry groups? You’ve got the people who benefit from problems and no solutions.
Well, it did point out that they probably are less concerned about complexity whereas a small business owner and leader, he or she can create a great innovation and change the very nature of society and then needs to get help to understand what their workplace obligations are because it’s so complex, it’s so nuanced, it was putting the point forward that very intelligent small business owners shouldn’t need to rely on external advice to be surefooted in their compliance with their employment obligations.
[Malcolm Roberts] Well, let’s take care of my next question. Are there still gaps between your office and the Fair Work Ombudsman that need to be improved? For example, small business support?
Well, they’re doing more and I’ve met with the Fair Work Ombudsman. We had a panel of regulators, Senator, was a cold night in Canberra and I’m sure we took an enormous amount of the audience away from Home and Away when we were talking about regulatory challenge, it was just a real cahoot, Senator, but we were working quite collaboratively. They’ve got some good resources. One of the things we can do is amplify and give higher visibility to those resources and also work carefully with them. They have their own small business helpline. I actually launched it in a former life. So I’m quite familiar with the need for good advice but we also thought there was some structural opportunities at the Fair Work Commission that could work alongside the Fair Work Ombudsman and make the system work better for smaller employers.
[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, next one is a specific around some of the broader areas you’ve been talking about. Do you get feedback from small business that the Fair Work system is too expensive for small businesses? For example, not just the complexity and the cost that entails and the distraction out of the business but paying “go away” money because they’re too busy to defend claims. For example, those kinds of things?
Yeah-
[Malcolm Roberts] And employees on the same note?
They tend not to come directly to us, but when we’re out on the road, Senator, it is a vivid topic for those that have been through it.
[Malcolm Roberts] And applies to employees, not just small business employers.
That’s correct, and one of the things that we were highlighting in our work is that the award system and the power imbalance assumes that the employer has got enormous resources and capability and the employee hasn’t. In many small businesses, it actually can be the reverse, say an employee with the support of an advisor or a representative, perhaps a union that can take cases and to appeal over and over again, probably has more horsepower and resources than the small business will ever have. And that was one of the recommendations we sought to address in my report, not the agency’s, but the report I provided his Honour Justice Ian Ross.
[Malcolm Roberts] Could you just recap, I think Senator Brockman asked this similar question, what are the main issues facing small business and what are you doing to sort these out? I know you mentioned bank loans, some find it difficult to get insurance?
Well, access to finance remains a big issue, Insurance remains a big issue as Senator Hume was alluding to, the focus on digital engagement is very important that we see a spotty level of engagement. I would hazard a guess that a significant minority are less open to the delicious possibilities that deeper digital engagement can offer. They may have been of my vintage, sir, where there were vendors promising the world when I had more hair that tech would change my business and it didn’t. And we often hear about that and those people now at a more mature age still in the economy might be hesitant to take up some of the digital engagement opportunities that are there. So that’s a big issue. For us, we still think government procurement offers great potential for greater small business engagement. And we think that’s a key priority for us. Women’s entrepreneurship, it’s also an area where we’re quite interested in and I’m also quite evangelical about alternative dispute resolution. It’s interesting in Australia a lot of small businesses turn to the regulator to defend their own economic interest because they’re frightened of cost order gorillas if they pursue legal recourse, they’re just worried. So they turn to the regulator. This is quite unusual in other comparable jurisdictions the people whose economic interest has been infringed upon are very up and about defending their own interests and are less reliant on the regulator. We think there might be something in that where the way the court system operates power imbalances may well be amplified throughout the legal process, me as a small business, you as a behemoth business owner, you’ve got five QCs, I’ve got my solicitor and we’re having a discussion and you’re reminding me that if I lose I get to pay for your crew. That can be a real disincentive to engage in that court based process. We think we can probably come up with some better avenues. That’s a priority for us as well.
[Malcolm Roberts] What about tax? Not just personal tax, but business tax and especially the complexity of the tax system?
We put a report out, when was that? May I consult the Deputy’s Ombudsman who was here when I wasn’t, sir?
February.
February, that just rolled off. It’s quite fresh, Senator. I can make sure we refer that inquiry report to you as well. And your winter reading list in Canberra will be abundant, sir.
[Malcolm Roberts] Thank you. Based upon your experience, although it’s only limited for a few months, should the role or powers of the Small Business Ombudsman be enhanced and if so, in what regard?
Yeah, we think there’s some scope for having more nudge ability to get disputing parties around a mediation table and potentially into arbitration to get matters sorted out quickly so that businesses can get back to business-
[Malcolm Roberts] What sort of power would that look like?
Well, at the moment, whilst we carry the title of Ombudsman we have no determinative power. We can’t decide anything. All we can do is facilitate and enable a process and put the parties together and give them wise advice, we hope, that they see it’s in everyone’s interest to sort it out quickly. Where there’s some few areas where we think a little bit of nudge potential might encourage those parties to engage in good faith and get those disputes resolved quickly, affordably and get business back to business.
[Malcolm Roberts] Since the last round of Senate estimates, which is what three months ago? Has there been any work done to identify opportunities for small business including red tape reduction and other initiatives, business codes, would it like to be reviewed and updated to ensure fairness for employers and employees?
Yes, we’ve engaged on a couple of reviews that other portfolios are doing. We’ve also been active on mutual skills recognition across jurisdictions, which was a measure included in the budget, so that if you’re a trades person in one state, you could readily apply your trade in another and have your qualifications carried over. We’ve also had some discussions with industry associations about their pain points, particularly where they might be multi-jurisdictional. Some examples, sir, may include, well you’ve seen we’ve been active in the Australia post area, where they felt complex and diferring state regulation was the reason for them to announce that they intended to discontinue perishable goods delivery. And we said, well, don’t discontinue it, let’s work out what these regulatory challenges are that you speak of. And so we’re engaged in that process as well. Areas of-
[Malcolm Roberts] A review of the business Fair Dismissal Code from both an employer and employee perspective to make it fairer for both?
That was a recommendation in our report.
[Malcolm Roberts] Okay, thank you
Actually, to make it function as it was intended, might be a more accurate description.
[Malcolm Roberts] Which protects both parties?
Yes.
[Malcolm Roberts] Employers and employees. Has the Small Business Ombudsman had the opportunity to engage in the development and review of regulation and information guidelines for small business in relation to casual conversion? That’s the conversion of casual employees to permanent employment?
No sir, we haven’t.
[Malcolm Roberts] Are you aware of the casual conversion guidelines?
Vividly so sir.
[Malcolm Roberts] Are they fit for purpose?
Well, there’s some positive response from small businesses that there’s now clarity around that, there was some chagrin that other reforms could perhaps have been included in that legislation that works. That’s the feedback we’ve had.
[Malcolm Roberts] So you’re passing that on?
Well, anyone who asks us, we’re not shy, Senator, we will pass on our feedback.
[Malcolm Roberts] To the Fair Work Commission?
Yeah, at that stage we haven’t engaged with them on that topic. The last discussion we had with the Fair Work Commission was at an officer level just on things they’re doing to streamline their processes, to make them more accessible for small businesses.
[Malcolm Roberts] They’re responsible, no it’s the Fair Work Ombudsman that’s responsible for the casual conversion guidelines-
The commission set the rules and the ombudsmans make sure that they’re being implemented.
[Malcolm Roberts] You had discussions with the Fair Work Ombudsman,
Only in terms of their guidance material they make available. Yeah, but not on that particular topic you asked, to be very specifically about
[Malcolm Roberts] Will you be having that?
casual conversion. I can add that to my list, ’cause I catch, We, I think I even chair a federal regulator agency group meeting where we all get together and work out who’s doing what?
[Malcolm Roberts] So you’re the Ombudsman’s Ombudsman.
I am, I think I’m the passionate but neutral chair amongst powerful regulators, sir.
[Malcolm Roberts] Okay. One final question, Chair, we’ve now got the term circuit breaker instead of lockdown.
[Mr. Billson] Yes.
[Malcolm Roberts] Which to me and others seems to be an attempt to bypass the growing resentment towards lockdowns. And they’ve belted small business now for about one of the quarter years. Not for the whole time, but intermittently along that time. A taxi operator, a taxi driver in Sydney on Friday, when I went home from Canberra, said to me that it’s not only belted his business on Friday the sudden shutdown in Victoria but it’s affected coffee shops, restaurant owners, hotels motels, a whole swath of businesses all with no advanced warning
I talked about this in my opening remarks, Senator, that they’re not-
No, they were there and it did point to the fact that that was a circuit breaker lockdown which created probably some expectation to be short but now the discussion is it might be longer. My point to the committee was it, in my view, it highlighted the need for greater certainty and predictability for business about what different types of lockdowns would trigger in terms of support and other measures that business could count on. Because at the moment there’s not a clear menu, there’s not a clear set of trigger points where people go, okay we’re now having one of those lockdowns, call it what you will, but we know the suite of measures that accompany that, that would give small businesses good clarity and it would also identify who’s expected to do what when these events occur, and that’s not just government, I mean, at what point does the conversation move to what’s the finance sector doing to accommodate these businesses, all the issues around leasing, that was all part of it and I’m from Victoria, Senator, and to be here in person, I didn’t go home, because I wouldn’t be allowed back but that’s the sort of thing that we think would be most helpful.
[Malcolm Roberts] And then we see, just listening driving home one evening, listening to Talkback Radio, which in Brisbane sometimes carries the feed from Sydney, And there was a Sydney sider saying, okay we get the hundred dollar voucher for travel to Cairns, stay in Cairns, but why the hell would I go to Cairns and risk two weeks in a lockdown afterwards at 3000 bucks just to save a hundred dollars. I mean those kinds of things and WA, Queensland and Victoria in particular have been capricious with these lockdowns and are you getting much resentment from the small business on that?
Yeah, absolutely, we are. I mean, they’re infuriated and bewildered by what is sensed to be inconsistencies across jurisdictions, proportionality to responses, why some jurisdictions treat certain events that look to a small business owner’s eyes as very similar as somewhere else, and that’s treated differently. That’s not surefooted conditions for a business owner to navigate and that’s why some improved predictability about trigger points and what sort of support they can count on would be, I think, a very positive step as we learn to live with COVID.
[Malcolm Roberts] The Chair is giving me the signal to wind up so-
I think he’s giving me the signal Senator, so I will.
It’s a general signal,
In my general direction.
[Malcolm Roberts] United Nations… Just a final comment, The United Nations World Health Organisation which I happen to think is a dishonest, corrupt and incompetent organisation –
Can I take that as a comment, Senator?
[Malcolm Roberts] Yes, even, and you don’t have to give your opinion. Even the world Health Organisation has said that lock downs are meant to be used as a last resort initially only just to get control of the virus. Does small business look upon the use of lock downs as an inability of the states to get control of the virus, so the virus is essentially managing the state economy rather than the state managing the virus?
Senator you’re leading me, and I might let that one just go through to the keeper okay?
[Chair] I think we need to treat that one as a comment. Thank you, Senator Roberts.
Chair, can I just use that though cheekily to flag that the United Nations Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Day of Recognition is coming up in June. So that would be a great opportunity to say thank you to the small businesses and family enterprises you count on. That would be a good thing coming out of the UN. And I might hand back to you, Chair.
Mr. Billson, I don’t think anyone would be left with any doubt about your passion for the small business sector and your suitability for the role. Thank you very much for appearing for the first time, I’m sure it’s not the last, we will see you again in a few months very likely.
Thank you, Chair, thank you Senators.
And thank you very much for your time, and I wish you all safe travels back to wherever you are heading. Thank you.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/XnNcGDeo-RE/0.jpg360480Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2021-06-03 14:14:402021-06-03 14:26:14Small Businesses are the backbone of the country
