Unfair law toxic for small businesses

It claims unfair dismissal laws will not increase unemployment. It is deluding itself. Any employer with close to 15 employees will think long and hard before employing new staff.

The reason for this blind spot is not difficult to discern.

Increasingly, those who make up the Labor caucus have less and less business experience. Each successive parliament in recent years has Labor members and senators with the same background: teachers, lawyers, public servants, party apparatchiks and trade union officials.

Noble occupations all, but a vastly different mix from when I came to Canberra 40 years ago. We had all the above but we also had farmers, policemen, doctors, chemists, journalists, accountants, small-business people and more. Unfair dismissal legislation would never have passed caucus, let alone cabinet.

It's never too late for a government to recognise it is in error. Let's hope it has the courage to do so.