HANSARD EXTRACT
| Trade Practices
Amendment (Collective Bargaining for Small Business) Bill
2005: Second Reading |
| 28 November 2005 |
Mr
HAYES
(Werriwa)
(3.41
p.m.)—I
thank the member for
Hunter
for bringing this matter before the House. The
Trade Practices Amendment (Collective
Bargaining for Small Business) Bill 2005 is a very
important bill. As you have heard, this has support from all parties
in this place. It has long been held—and I think it is fairly
so—that small business is the backbone of this country. We on all
sides of the parliament are pretty united on the fact that we need
to have one position when it comes to granting small business the
ability to collectively bargain.
People in my electorate of Werriwa who have approached me directly,
including those involved in the transport industry, believe it is a
necessity for them as small business operators to sit together and
negotiate with the larger companies they contract to. That is not
all that dissimilar to what occurs, as we have just heard, with
respect to agriculture and other areas within the economy.
Small businesses are certainly at the forefront of the drivers of
the Australian economy, but in my electorate and in many of the
electorates represented in this House they are also the generators
of employment. The fact that small businesses can collectively
bargain in their arrangements and have a streamlined effect in their
dealings with the larger corporations paves the way for them to have
some security of outcome and gives them some certainty in their
arrangements when employing people for the future. Therefore, this
is a significant bill, one which sees enshrined in legislation the
ability of small businesses to collectively bargain and one which
gives them a very genuine right to engage in a practice which most
people would regard as commonplace.
I do not think anybody in this House would think it was fair for a
small business person without collective arrangements to simply have
to negotiate their way clear on economic matters direct with either
national or multinational companies. This is particularly so for
those in country and regional areas who need to secure products
through arrangements with transporters and with central markets. To
secure the livelihood of country and regional
Australia,
this would be regarded as not only common practice but fair practice
within those regional economies, and I doubt whether any member
opposite would say anything different.
It gets back to the point that I made about the people in my
electorate who have approached me, especially the small transport
operators, about their dealings with larger companies, whether they
be TNT, Toll, Patrick or others. When they are dealing with their
principal employer, if you like, in this instance, or the principal
body which is going to engage their business—whether the business is
providing labour and transport or whatever—they would like to know
that they are not going to be dealing one out and then be left
solely to their own devices, when they are seeking to secure not
only their own position but the positions of their families, the
people who work for them and, to some extent, in many instances in
various electorates, the viability of small business as it operates
in those areas. It is appropriate that this matter be dealt with
now. It has been sitting around for some time. It has bipartisan
support in this regard and it is a tragedy that—
The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr
Jenkins)—Order!
The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is
adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of
the day for the next sitting.
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