Mr WINDSOR (11:57 AM) —I would like to speak briefly to the Workplace Relations Amendment (Fair Dismissal) Bill 2004, as I have on a number of other occasions when this bill has been presented to the House in its various shapes and forms. I say at the outset that I support the government in relation to this legislation. Seeing that it has come before the parliament on so many occasions, this is an area where the philosophical differences between the two sides of the parliament really should be set aside. It is becoming almost farcical—and each side is as guilty as the other. The member for Riverina made some important points. What is important here are the people who operate these small businesses and the people who work for them.

Irrespective of people's philosophical and ideological views on this, and despite the history of the Liberal Party versus the Labor Party over industrial relations—particularly back in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s—I think it is time we moved on. In this particular case we are talking about people who risk their own capital to start up businesses, employ people in growing numbers, and generate more income in the economies that they live in. It is time that we recognised that the current arrangements are working against employment. I am disappointed in the Labor Party on this issue, because I have always believed that the Labor Party stood for trying to create more jobs to encourage more employment. By continually voting against this legislation I think it is creating a definite blockage to employment.

So I am supportive of the government's view on this. I thought the member for Riverina made some very clear statements on the particular issues for country small businesses. There are concerns out there in the business community, particularly for people who are employing five, six, seven, eight or 20 people. They do not have time. They are busy running their businesses and making sure there is a margin for profit left in their operation. They do not want to become industrial relations lawyers. The member for Riverina expressed the concerns they have about the legal actions that can take place if they want to lay off someone who is not performing very well. I will not go back through all those issues. I just want to put it on record that I am supportive.

In terms of the broader picture for business, employment and industrial relations, we are talking about the cost impediments that various changes can have on small business operators. I would like to take a few moments to reflect on a couple of the other issues that are very important for small businesses and their operation. There is obviously the burden of costs. One of the things we are looking at now is the cost of fuel escalating at an enormous rate. Very grave concerns are being expressed by various international players as to what could be happening with the price of fuel over the coming months and years. A number of people in this parliament have raised issues relating to this from time to time. One issue is the taxation levels on fuel. I think most people know that the Commonwealth government did cap the indexation rates on fuel excise, but there is still a non-capped GST express train occurring as fuel prices escalate. At some stage, whether it be through the Council of Australian Governments processes or other processes, we are going to have to look very closely at that. If we do have this enormous escalation occurring in fuel prices, we cannot have that burden passed back through the system—

Mr Brough —You have got to get the states to agree on that.

Mr WINDSOR —particularly to country people. The minister says that you have to get the states to agree on that—and that is quite right. One thing the states did not do is remove the fuel sales grant scheme; the Commonwealth government removed the fuel sales grant scheme. That scheme was put in place, quite rightly, by the Commonwealth government—and I applauded the government of the time, even though I was a member of the state parliament when that occurred. Quite rightly the Prime Minister and the cabinet agreed that, because there was going to be an inequitable application of the goods and services tax for country people—because they were paying a different bowser price for fuel—the government would put in place what was called the fuel sales grant scheme so that people who lived in the country would not be disadvantaged. I think it was last October that the leader of The Nationals gave an ironclad guarantee that that would be maintained into the future and the government would not have a dual tax system with one GST for country people and another for city people. I think it was in February that that all turned around again, and obviously the Liberals once again told The Nationals what they had to do. That all turned around, and the fuel sales grant scheme has been removed. So now we have a system in which country people pay more in goods and services tax than their city counterparts. So I ask the minister to look seriously at that issue. The unfair dismissals bill has implications, but so does the inequity in the application of the goods and services tax.

The other issue I would like to raise briefly is the cost of doing business in country Australia and how we can do something about some of these things internally rather than always trying to blame someone else in terms of free trade agreements et cetera. Why don't we look internally at the things that we can do? An obvious example is the further promotion of ethanol as part of our fuel mix. I suggest that we should look seriously at mandating 10 per cent ethanol in our petrol and phasing that in over a period of time. I thought the government was moving in that direction a few years ago, but the oil companies and other players in the global conglomeration of business seem to be calling the tune and the government has moved away from its own renewable energy legislation. If our petrol contained 10 per cent ethanol it would have an enormous impact on country businesses—the small businesses we are all talking about. The flow-on effects would be extraordinary. It would replace imports. It would take away the dependence of a lot of our grain exports on the vagaries of international grain markets. It would have an enormous impact on employment in country communities. It would underwrite the price of grain. There are a whole range of things that would occur.

If the government is serious about being fair to people and trying to generate business activity within our own borders, it should revisit the ethanol arrangements it has put in place. There is no doubt that there is going to be an escalation in the price of petrol and, at some stage, we have to recognise that we cannot keep using that as a revenue source. We have to recognise that we may gain internationally some comparative advantage if we take advantage of agriculture, the efficiency of our farmers and the potential to grow some of our own fuel here. That could apply to the sugar industry as well. Those communities are having enormous problems at the moment. The small businesses up there are under enormous pressure because of the collapse of the sugar industry and the rather cavalier fashion in which sugar was left out of the free trade agreement. Everybody seemed to say: `That's okay. We'll just throw a few dollars at them, and they will eventually go away.

I do not think that is good enough. We have got a circumstance now with ethanol and renewable energy where we are exporting our grain at a world price that is corrupt and then using some of the money we get from the export of that grain to go and buy oil at a price that suffers the vagaries of international trade and that is in a sense a corrupt price too. Then we have the hide to talk about free markets within this building and how we should enter into a whole range of free trade agreements. I suggest we should do things that we have some control over internally and look at the possibility of escalating the mandating of ethanol in our fuels. In my view, that will have a much more significant impact on the profitability of many small businesses right across Australia than this legislation.

As I said, I am a supporter of this legislation. I think the Labor Party philosophically have to get off an old treadmill they have been on for many years and get this legislation through the House. But if the government had put as much energy into renewable energy, the ethanol related energy sources that we could be producing in Australia, as they put into this legislation, bringing this bill back 40 times, it could have been more productive expenditure of energy for country people and small business than continually rotating this particular bill.