In his first address as Minister for Employment, Senator Eric Abetz outlined what can be expected of The Coalition at this year’s Australian Payroll Association Conference.
The Coalition government is set to cut down on the bureaucratic burden on employers, including streamlining payroll practices, according to Senator Eric Abetz, Minister for Employment.
“The Coalition government is committed to cutting red tape,” Senator Abetz said in his opening address at the Australian Payroll Association’s Conference this morning.
“Excessive red tape makes it harder for employers to create jobs and improve productivity,” he added, highlighting the new requirement for Parliament to spend two days a year reviewing and removing legislation and regulations that place unnecessary burden on employers and payroll administrators.
One area in which The Coalition is seeking to take a direct approach is the paid parental leave scheme. Senator Abetz explained that payments will be made directly by the Commonwealth Government. “It will be paid and administered through the family assistance office and that means no additional paperwork [for employers],” he stated.
“By contrast, I know how much of a burden has been placed on you with – in almost all instances – employers required to act as pay masters after receiving the employee’s entitlement from Centrelink. To us, that was unnecessarily complicated,” he added.
As well as expanding on more options given to small businesses regarding superannuation and reconfirming the axing of the Rudd Government’s FBT changes, Abetz detailed the reasons for changing the ministry name from ‘Employment and Workplace Relations’ to simply ‘Employment’.
He explained the change was to focus in on the fact that the first priority must be employment.
“Too often in the past we have got tangled up with workplace relations: what the unions want, what the bosses want, what interest groups want. At the end of the day, the task of government is to ensure we create the right environment for jobs to grow and be created,” he explained.
Abetz stated he believes the government does not create employment, but instead creates the environment in which jobs can develop.
“It’s macro-economics coming together with micro-economics … you get the settings right nationally for the national economy, but you also have to get it right for the economy of the household that the wage needs to sustain,” he said. “In the space of employment it is often easy to forget in all the numbers and statistics it is about individuals.”
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