Senator Eric Abetz

Retailers who are struggling to cope with the introduction of Julia Gillard’s complex modern awards scheme now face the prospect of being unfairly targeted by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

Why is the Ombudsman subjecting retailers to a substantive audit of pay scales, penalty rates and leave loading allowances, at a time when the retail award is still being worked out by Fair Work Australia?

Applications to vary the Retail Award, in relation to minimum engagement periods, are still being determined by Fair Work Australia. This is despite the President of Fair Work Australia stating, during questioning in Senate Estimates, that the backlog of award variations would be completed by the end of March.

It’s bad enough that retailers face a mountain of administrative paperwork associated with the bureaucratic minefield created by Ms Gillard with the introduction of her new industrial laws and now they face an even more complicated audit by the Ombudsman.

This is yet another example of the complete mess that Julia Gillard and Labor have created by rushing through workplace changes without much thought of the consequences for Australian small business.

The sensible thing to do would be to wait until retailers have a chance to come to grips with the complicated changes Labor has foisted on the sector and at the very least wait until Fair Work has finalised the detail of the award.

The retail sector is the backbone of this country and to subject the sector to this sort of unnecessary scrutiny at a time when Australian small business is struggling to understand the complexity of Labor’s new laws is premature and fails the commonsense test!