“There is real anxiety from small business”: David Pocock explains his industrial relations deal-making strategy

As business groups bemoan the contentious Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill, independent Senator David Pocock says the amendments he secured will shield small businesses from the most significant industrial relations reforms contained in the legislation.

Pocock, the ACT Senator whose vote will likely decide if the federal government’s reforms live or die in the Upper House, secured a tranche of meaningful updates to the bill in last-minute negotiations over the weekend.

Those amendments mean small businesses with fewer than 20 employees will be shielded from the single interest stream of multi-employer bargaining.

In addition, a new “reasonable comparability” test means employee representatives must prove to the Fair Work Commission that businesses with fewer than 50 staff should be included in agreements covering multiple workforces.

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Despite the concessions, business groups including the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia are still concerned about how the package will impact local firms.

In an op-ed published in the Nine papers Tuesday morning, Pocock defended the concessions, declaring the bill is now “substantially different” from the one passed in the Lower House last month.

“It is better for workers and better for business, especially small business,” he said.

The “real anxiety” faced by the small business community was “front of mind for me throughout this entire process”, resulting in a suite of “safeguards” which will effectively exclude 97.5% of Australian businesses from multi-employer bargaining.

Beyond those tweaks, Pocock also secured a commitment from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will consider and respond to the Murray Review’s view of payments security, particularly for subcontractors reliant on invoices from major constructors.

Another commitment wrested from the government is a pledge to review the suitability of welfare payments ahead of each federal budget, with Pocock saying he wanted to secure protections for those “doing it toughest” in the community.

The Labor government’s desire to pass the legislation before Christmas means discussions were rushed, he added, while maintaining it won’t be the last major debate over industrial relations reform to occur in this term of Parliament.

He has good reason to believe that’s the case: the government has also committed to a statutory review of its reforms two years after they come into effect, Pocock said.

With the Senate’s final sitting week for the year now in motion, the legislation is highly likely to pass into law — and Pocock is set to enter 2023 as a known quantity in federal politics.

“It won’t always be my vote the government relies on, but when they do they will know who they’re dealing with,” he wrote.

You can read Pocock’s op-ed here.