Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There is hope. There is hope, Minister Birmingham. I did not think it was close, so Senator Lines did not need to come out swinging quite as hard as she did, but she likes a fight and I am happy to take it up to her. There is no devil in the detail, Senator Lines. There is no devil in the detail. This review was not stacked. It was your review, it was Bill Shorten's review, so the detail is your own detail. In fact, this is a policy you also took to the election, so you are unfortunately dishonouring your own commitment to a fair, balanced, simple and flexible industrial relations system.

We are never going to get this right unless we can enact recommendations in legislation that deliver on our commitment, so that both sides in the industrial relations space feel it is a balanced system. But that will not happen until you get it through your heads, until you agree, that issues that affect productivity ultimately affect small business's ability to employ your members. But then I guess you do not have too many members in small businesses, do you, which are the powerhouse of our economy, particularly of regional Australia. You do not have a lot of members there, so you do not really care about those workers. You do not really care about those workers because they are not paying the fees that are going to get you re-elected. They are not actually participating in votes that are going to be useful to you in preselections, so you do not care about those workers. If you really cared about workers in this country, you would be supporting our Jobs and Competitiveness Program; you would be helping us to pass legislation that was going to fund programs that focus on the most vulnerable workers and unemployed people of this country; but you did not. You did not. You are not going to implement the recommendations of your own review to ensure our industrial relations system is simple and fair. You are just going to continue with the rhetoric, continue being the mouthpieces of the ACTU, continue being the mouthpieces of the CFMEU and continue to undermine your desire to truly represent the workers of Australia and to ensure they get a better outcome. And, ultimately, you will betray the trade union movement by backing those who take away its credibility against those that are trying to give it some credibility. You are going to have to get this right or it is not going to work out for you. It does not go any further.

This review was not stacked. It was not anti worker, it was not anti union, because Bill appointed it. Labor are not the only champions of the everyday worker and, as much as they would like to convince Australia that they are, this chamber will not be emotionally blackmailed into believing otherwise.

The future is not as bleak as Senator Lines and those opposite would have us believe. We are championing a strong, functioning industrial relations system that is sustainable and flexible, something that Labor did not have the guts to deliver because you like the partisan debate. It gives you something to fight about, rather than solving the problem, rather than delivering a system that is flexible for both businesses and the workers so that businesses can remain profitable and continue to employ the workers. It is a simple equation. I am happy to go out the back with a whiteboard and some whiteboard markers and explain to you! Businesses earning a dollar employ more Australians, and that has to be a good thing. There is honour into work. I do not want to see Australians on the unemployment line.

Labor, if you are serious, please deliver on Bill's recommendations, for the sake of the whole Australian workforce.