Graeme Haycroft is a Queenslander with a colourful turn of phrase and near-perfect free-market credentials.
A member of the National Party and the H.R. Nicholls Society, he boasts that, because of a tussle he had with the Australian Workers Union 15 years ago, the union does not have a single member shearing sheep in south-western Queensland today.
Now he runs a labour hire firm with a thriving sideline in moving small-business employees off awards and collective agreements and onto the Federal Government's preferred individual contracts, Australian Workplace Agreements.
Only 2.4 per cent of the workforce has signed on, although AWAs are becoming common in some industries, such as mining.
Mr Haycroft's business stands out because he is targeting lower-skilled, lower-paid workers, often with poor English - the people unions say have much to fear from individual contracts.
"People need to make their own decisions in life and we need to achieve flat rates where people just get paid for what they do," he said.
After shifting his own roster of 500 workers onto the contracts in 1998, Mr Haycroft realised there was money to be made in passing on what he had learnt.
His foray into mushroom picking started when he was invited to speak at a 2002 mushroom growers' conference.
He remembers calling growers onto the stage and offering them $20 to throw the award they hated the most into a bin.
"I'd say: 'This thing caused you enormous hardship; throw it in the bin. Throw it in the bin with great force."'
Later interested growers would call, he would walk them through the process of bundling award conditions into one flat rate and then sell the proposition to the staff, before having the agreements approved by the the federal Office of the Employment Advocate.
Grateful clients in the mushroom business say he has saved businesses from going under.
"Supermarkets are open 24/7 and people want fresh mushrooms 24/7 … and mushrooms double in size every 24 hours," said Greg Seymour, chief executive of the Mushroom Growers Association. "The problem is, if you pick a box on Friday you get $20, you pick one on Sunday and you get $20 bucks but it cost you $26 to pick it."
Mr Haycroft said workers had been more than happy to sign on, most with their penalty rates, holiday pay and other conditions being rolled into a flat rate.
However, Mr Haycroft was stripped of his preferred provider status with the Office of the Employment Advocate on Thursday, after a Sydney picker, Carmen Walacz Vel Walewska, said she was sacked after she contacted the Australian Workers Union for advice on AWAs.
Despite the dispute, Mr Haycroft said he saw a bright future for businesses like his.
He predicted that within five years 20 per cent of the workforce would be on individual workplace contracts.