Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his repeated defence in this place of the Cowra Abattoir and its owner, who, under the government’s industrial relations legislation, lawfully sacked 30 employees and rehired some on inferior terms and conditions for so-called financial operational reasons. I also refer to the administrator’s report into the abattoir, showing that as at 30 June 2006, while the Office of Workplace Services was conducting its investigation into the operational reasons for the sackings, a total of $1.18 million had already been transferred from the abattoir to a related company of the owner. Why did the Prime Minister give the abattoir owner a clean bill of health when there was a highly questionable million-dollar transfer on the books of the company at the very time of the Office of Workplace Services investigation?

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