More Laws, Fewer Jobs
Western Victoria MP Bev McArthur spoke out against the Wage Theft Bill which was passed into law by the Victorian Parliament this week, describing it as “yet another piece of legislation introduced into this place because it sounds good…”
In her speech to the Victorian Legislative Council, she expressed doubt about the effectiveness of the new law, noting its numerous operational inadequacies, and its exact duplication of existing and upcoming Federal powers.
She spoke most passionately, however, about Labor’s complete misunderstanding of business owners and employers, who they continually berate but who they expect to be the employment creators.
She said: “Through its fundamental misunderstanding of the morality and the motivation of business owners, [the Bill] threatens to prove actively damaging to the Victorian economy…”
“Business owners are not a class apart, strange creatures with different morals who seek to enrich themselves and who don’t give a damn about the health and happiness of their employees. They are real people who work their fingers to the bone, fight hard, take risks, sometimes successfully, often not. These are the people whose enterprise creates jobs and provides livelihoods to families, who offer services to the public, who foot heavy tax and rates bills.”
She noted that “at a time when all Governments are asking employers to create jobs, this Government is making it harder and harder.”
“I strongly urge Members to think of the unemployed, of the young, of all workers of the future, who will be denied the jobs this legislation will strangle at birth.”
Mrs McArthur argued that some on the left of politics have little personal experience of business or business people, and are likely to believe that all business is big business.
“They do not appreciate the day to day stresses, they do not see the failures, they imagine that successful and prominent entrepreneurs represent the average, not the exception.”
“70% of business in Australia, which employ any staff, employ fewer than five. In Western Victoria, 95% employ fewer than 20.”
“Small businesses employ family, friends, close neighbours. They recognise that often their most valuable asset is their staff. There is no revolving door, no flexible labour market for rural and regional businesses, nor is there the anonymity of the big city society which might enable evil employers to hide themselves from the community they are oppressing. It’s just not how small firms, or regional and rural towns, work.”
Mrs McArthur noted that this is just the latest in a series of Bills which will make it harder for Victorians to set-up and carry on in business.
“…multinational corporations are treated in the same way as mum-and-dad, family owned businesses, often those which began with successful self-employed individuals.”
She concluded by arguing that the Wage Theft Bill is the wrong way to address underpayment of staff, and that the biggest problem is not the dishonesty of business owners, but rather the complexity of the laws.
“The biggest problem is not dishonest employers, it is the sheer staggering complexity of workplace relations in Australia… When organisations such as the Red Cross, the ABC and Maurice Blackburn are caught underpaying, there is clearly something bigger at issue than just intentional ‘wage theft’ going on… with the best will in the world, employers struggle to navigate employee entitlements and conditions contained in the Fair Work Act, which contains over 214,000 works and over 800 sections.”
19 June 2020