Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to join in this matter of public importance debate brought on by the shadow minister, the member for Gorton, and it is a pleasure to take up one remark of the member for Longman. He spoke of a fundamental divide between our parties—and I agree with him. This is the most fundamental divide. We are the party of jobs—the high-skill, high-wage, secure jobs of the future, providing the decent wages and conditions that are the bedrock of our social compact. They have no regard for these things that are fundamental—not just to people's working lives but right across people's lives—to maintaining their living standards and a decent society.

The member for Longman, the youngest member in the parliament, apart from speaking of the China free trade agreement, which I will return to in a minute, could only take us to history rather than any vision of jobs for the future: a homily of Winston Churchill's, and a ridiculous rewriting of the Hawke-Keating years—an obsession of members opposite. Perhaps they could focus more on the record of achievement of their government rather than traducing a great Labor government of the eighties. I will just say this: in terms of his confidence in respect of ChAFTA, it is entirely misplaced, as any fair reading of the agreement shows. It will do nothing for Australian jobs, other than to put wages and conditions seriously under threat.

The member for Macquarie spoke of scaremongering on the part of opposition members—

See this speech in context