Page 3110 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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I think it is only fair that both the federal coalition and we as an Assembly seek to implement policies and practices that do not discourage employment but encourage employment—encourage supporting businesses that seek to make an investment in our economy.
Mr Gentleman interjecting—
MR WALL: Mr Gentleman is interjecting, saying, “Give them a pay rise.” Most business owners would love to give their staff a pay rise. They would love to get paid themselves for the work they are doing. To think that someone makes an investment, takes the initiative, sets up a business and in most instances will go without income for months on end to ensure that their staff get paid shows the misunderstanding, the lack of thought or consideration that those opposite show to the business community.
Ms Berry raises concern about right of entry for unions not only onto construction sites but also into businesses. The changes that the legislation proposes, that a union will be able to enter on the invitation of an employee that is a member or a prospective member, ensure that it is fair.
The words that the Boral CEO used to describe his company’s experiences with union involvement are fair. He described it as blackmail, a criminal conspiracy and a failure of the law. For those who are not familiar with Boral’s experience, they were simply a supplier to a construction site that was having a dispute with the CFMEU. As a supplier, they were squeezed out of supplying their product to that company. As a result, there was a significant financial loss, which has in effect cost jobs, which those opposite seek to stand up for, and unnecessarily prohibited both business and employment from flourishing as they should.
More to the point, I would like to touch on some of my local experience. As shadow minister for small business, I make it a priority to get out and talk to local business owners. I have also held a number of forums here in the Assembly where I have invited business owners from particular sectors into the Assembly to share their experiences—what is working and what is not necessarily working as well as it could in the local sector.
I might share an experience in the cleaning sector here and an issue that they have had with the union that Ms Berry used to represent, United Voice. They are bullying their way into workplaces and lobbying business owners to sign up to what they call a clean start agreement. When they refuse to, they hassle, bully and use thuggery on the workers in that sector until they sign up and then hammer the business owner to start paying well above award wages.
The simple solution there, if the wages in that sector are not adequate, is not to lobby the business owner or lobby the workers to fork out their hard-earned money to join a union but to lobby the government to change the award. It is a basic no-brainer. Change the award. Here, at a local level, we have got the government opposite paying award rates for some cleaning in government buildings; we have got them paying clean start for cleaning in some government buildings; and then, in other instances,
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