Eric Abetz isn't getting much support from coalition colleagues for his solution to the political dilemma facing the Turnbull government over weekend penalty rates.
The veteran Liberal senator, dumped as employment minister when Malcolm Turnbull toppled Tony Abbott in 2015, is urging the Fair Work Commission to limit its decision to align the Sunday rate to Saturday to new employees.
"The issue around grandfathering would concern me because I don't want to create an incentive for people to remove employees," Nationals MP Andrew Broad told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.
Earlier Treasurer Scott Morrison was dismissive of the Abetz solution.
"He's entitled to his opinion, but it's not government policy," he said.
Labor senator Jenny McAllister said one of the unintended consequences of the "silly solution" was that one group of workers would cost more than another.
"We would see a situation where an employer decided to lay off a worker who did receive penalty rates so that they could take on somebody who didn't," she told reporters.
The Greens believe the government is weakening on the issue.
"Given the amount of backflips we've seen from the government in recent times it wouldn't surprise me at all if they ended up coming around to support workers," Senator Peter Whish-Wilson
Opposition workplace relations spokesman Brendan O'Connor said Senator Abetz was a minister in exile.
"This government is so divided, so dysfunctional you'll even have Eric Abetz trying to sound pro-worker to embarrass Malcolm Turnbull."
