John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

My position on this has not been to repeatedly defend the company. Rather, my position has been to repeatedly point out that the argument made by the Labor Party and the unions—that the retrenchment of these workers was due entirely to the operation of the new Work Choices legislation—was wrong. That is the argument. It may come as a blinding flash of light and new reality to the member for Perth for me to tell him that companies have lost money, gone broke and retrenched workers under every industrial relations system this nation has had since Federation. If in fact there has been something wrong in the behaviour of the company, I would invite the member for Perth—and anybody else who is interested—to take that matter up with the relevant body, which is ASIC.

My position is very simple. The argument advanced by the unions and the Labor Party all along in relation to this company has been ‘It’s all been due to Work Choices’. The evidence to date is that that claim is wrong. If the unions and the Labor Party have any evidence to the contrary, they should give it to ASIC. The reality to date is that what the Labor Party has been arguing is completely false.

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