Senator Eric Abetz

Today’s decision by the Rudd/Gillard Government’s Fair Work Australia rejecting an application to vary the minimum hours for school children wanting to work after school completely fails the common sense test.

The decision by Fair Work Australia Vice President Watson is indicative of the Rudd/Gillard Government’s ‘straight jacket – one size fits all’ approach to industrial laws and means thousands of young Australians will now miss out on jobs.

I’m perplexed by today’s media release from Julie Collins and Justine Elliott who, following their visit to Hawthorn Village aged care facility at Blackmans Bay would have us believe that Julia Gillard is somehow responsible for the construction of their new dementia wing.

Minister Elliott and Ms Collins toured the 13-bed dementia wing that was constructed with the assistance of a $1 million capital grant from the Gillard Government.

Simon Crean should spend less time talking up the so called benefits of getting into bed with his old comrades in the union movement as industrial partners in the workplace and devote more time to fixing the industrial relations mess left for him to clean up by his predecessor Julia Gillard.

Since Labor’s new ‘so called’ Modern Awards scheme kicked in on the 1^st of July, my office has been inundated with complaints from workers and small business owners struggling to understand Labor’s new laws and frustrated by the complete lack of information and support from Labor’s Fair Work bureaucracy.

The outrageous decision by Fair Work Australia to award a payout to a man convicted of sex offences, as reported in today’s media, is potentially one against which Minister Simon Crean and Labor should consider launching an appeal.

There is no common sense in this decision which sends the wrong message to small business owners.