MPs push for employee share scheme

04 March 2014

A group of government backbenchers is campaigning for the Abbott government to introduce a new employee share scheme to encourage start-up companies and potentially reduce workplace tensions between workers and employers.

The key Coalition economics and finance policy committee, which ­considers the government’s economics legislation before it is introduced to the party room, will meet on Monday night to discuss how the Abbott government might reverse Labor’s 2009 changes, which were blamed for the almost ­overnight collapse of employee share schemes in Australia.

Victorian Liberal and committee chairman Tony Smith and Christian Porter, a former Western Australian treasurer and now the committee’s ­secretary, have organised the briefing of up to two dozen MPs and senators on Monday.

Share scheme lobby group Employee Ownership Australia and New Zealand, which is backed by major accounting and professional firms, will brief the politicians on the potential reforms that could see share ownership schemes extended to medium-sized firms and start-up companies.

Source: BRW, Backbench MPs push for employee share scheme, March 3