I am honoured the Prime Minster has today appointed me as Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations.
As Attorney-General, I will, among many tasks, work closely with Senator Amanda Stoker to finalise the Government’s response to the Respect@Work report.
In my role as Industrial Relations Minister, I look forward to working with all stakeholders to ensure that employers, in particular small businesses, and their employees are given better access to information about their rights and responsibilities. This will help create greater confidence for small business to employ more Australians.
I want to thank my predecessor the Hon Christian Porter MP for his work in the Attorney General and Industrial Relations portfolios.
As Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business I am extremely proud of my record. As Employment Minister, I worked with colleagues to oversee the largest return in jobs, following the short and sharp recession caused by the covid-19 pandemic. I am also proud to have initiated the overhaul and modernisation of our employment services system to create more efficient and better outcomes for job seekers.
It was an honour to serve as Minister for Skills where skills reforms agreed by the National Cabinet have been progressed and I thank my State and Territory counterparts for the constructive way we have engaged on these reforms.
The success of the Morrison Government apprenticeship wage subsidies has seen more than 120,000 apprentices remain in their jobs and created over 100,000 new apprenticeship and trainee opportunities.
Finally, in the Small and Family Business area, I have implemented a number of landmark reforms to support small businesses to prosper, grow and hire more Australians. This includes improving small business cash flow through the Payment Times Reporting Scheme and Procurement Connected Policy and access to finance through the Australian Business Securitisation Fund and the Australian Business Growth Fund.
With these achievements, and a record number of Australians in employment, I believe my successor the Hon Stuart Robert MP will be able to continue to deliver good outcomes for all Australians.
Michaelia Cash
Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator for Western Australia