rstuart,

Apart from showing that the IR laws will not affect whether YOU would employ people, however, with comments like:

"But as it happens, our society doesn't exist to just to make life easy for a business owner."

You show a remarkable lack of understanding of humanity or economics. The simple fact is that when something is made more difficult, less people do it. This applies to all aspects of life from crime to having children.

Make employing people harder, and less people will be employed. This flows from the fundemental laws of economics. That these laws impose a burden on small business is not in dispute, and the consequences are inevitable, and your assertions to the contrary apply only to yourself.

The headlines are that 25% of small businesses are planning layoffs. The question is that when the economy turns around who will re hire?

rstuart, I don't wish to go on and on about the same thing so I will leave your comment alone but still maintain my statement as being factual, that is if past history is any guide.

As SH has stated, and it is probobly the easiest way to put it. When you make something harder, anything, many people just tend to steer away from it as they prefeer to avoid conflict rather than have to deal with it.

With the Krud team now addmitting the we are headed for the dreaded 'R Word', now is simply not the time to be placing extra hurdels in front of the countries largest employer group.

Krud and co are about to destroy the lives of many families throughout this country but I guess this may not worry you as you only have numbers on your payroll, not names.

I guess hiring and firing for you is like a game of bingo, spin the wheel and see what number drops. Perhaps a little 'fairness' would not hurt, you should give it a go, you may be pleasently surprised to learn a little about what make your staff tick, out of work!

Shadow Minister: "The question is that when the economy turns around who will re hire?"

Going on recent history Shadow, probably everybody. We have after all recently gone through the greatest, longest economic boom I can remember. During that time unemployment fell to record lows. Oddly, these very laws you say will stop people from hiring were first introduced at the start of that period.

Shadow Minister: "The simple fact is that when something is made more difficult, less people do it."

Going on the evidence above economics is not quite as simple as you seem to think, Shadow.

Shadow Minister: "Make employing people harder, and less people will be employed."

The laws don't make it harder to employ people, they operate at the other end - when you dismiss someone. Hence their name - the unfair dismissal laws. I know you said you have dabbled in IR laws, but since you seem to be confused on that point I guess I should ensure you are aware they aren't called the unfair redundancy laws for the same good reason. They don't have much effect on redundancies, and making someone redundant isn't difficult. If it were, that might make someone put off hiring until they were absolutely sure there was enough work to support the new employee. Fortunately that isn't the case. This is possibly why they don't appear to cost jobs.

rehctub: "as you only have numbers on your payroll, not names."

Well rehctub, I don't know what you were trying to achieve here, but you did succeed getting a wry chuckle out of me. It's just another example vivid imagination allowed to run rampant on OLO, but there is some part of me that finds this sort of thing amusing.

rehctub: "Perhaps a little 'fairness' would not hurt, you should give it a go"

No thanks rehctub. You probably have an inkling of what I regard as fair. A part of it ensuring everybody understands how things work, how their actions effect those around them and my business. Another part of it is insisting they be responsible for those effects, just as I am responsible for the effects I have on them. Well they are bits I have revealed here.

In what you have revealed here rehctub, it seems your notion of what is fair is oddly aligned with things that benefit rehctub. You insist you are wonderfully fair in your dealing with your employees of course, but I see no actual examples of it in your words. And given what you have said, you seem to have no trouble ascribing the worst possible motivations to peoples actions. If you are trying to judge how someone might treat others, that is never a good sign.

So I will give your offer a miss. It seems likely your definition of fair doesn't align with what my mother taught me it meant, which means I would not be very good at implementing it anyway.

Rstuart,

Aside from your opinions above, have you any substance to back up what you are saying?

Every article I have read indicates that employment would be adversely affected the question are about how much.

The best article I have seen so far goes to some length to quantify the cost to small businesses and the resulting unemployment. The article is not against the laws.

http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/publications/reports/UFD.pdf

“Assuming that wages of Australian workers are not influenced by the unemployment rate together with the assumption of a wage elasticity of demand of 0.7 and the finding that UFD laws raise the average cost per employee by at least $296 per year yields an estimate that these laws reduce employment of workers on the average wage by about 0.46 per cent.3 The effect is much larger for workers on minimum wages (about $20 500 per year) where the reduction in employment is about 1 per cent. Thus another dimension of the inequity caused by UFD laws is that the burden is borne most heavily in terms of increased unemployment by low wage and low skilled workers who are among the most vulnerable in the community.”

The new legislation will result in the following changes:

Businesses will be required to bargain with their employees and the union for a collective enterprise agreement.

If Fair Work Australia believes that the employees in a particular industry are low-paid that businesses may be required to provide wages and entitlements above the award and legislated minimum standards.

Business will no longer be able to dismiss an employee without giving proper warnings to ensure that the dismissal is not viewed as being unfair. After 1 January 2011, the exemption will be based on a strict headcount of businesses with less than 15 employees.

Unions will be given greater power to enter workplaces to discuss and consult with employees.

Unions will be given expanding rights. This means that if one single employee in the workplace is a union member, the union has a right to be involved in the bargaining process and be a party to the agreement.

Oddly, these very laws you say will stop people from hiring were first introduced at the start of that period.

Rubbish. The laws were first introduced back in the arly 90's and it was not until the early 2000's, when the laws were finally watered down due to a majority lib govenment, that our ecconomy boomed.

Come to think of it, they were introduced either just prior to or just after the last reccesion. The one we had to have.

How ironic that we are about to head into another recession and these laws are being tightened by yet another labor government, the first in almost 12 years, 7 or 8 of which have been boom time years.

I think it best that we agree to disagree and let it be.

I have seen what happened first hand as I have been in small business since 1989 and I can assure anyone out there who is sitting on the fence that these laws will lead to job losses.

We now have UFD, super contributions at 9%, payroll tax (how dumb is that, a tax that hurts one for expanding and creating jobs)and the list goes on.

They just keep throwing up the barriers don't they.
Good luck to you all in the future and I hope I am proven wrong and that your jobs are secure.