Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

It was by Sid Marris. The article says:

Labor is debating internally how it can minimise a backlash from small businesses over its plan to wind back their exemption from unfair dismissal laws.

And listen to this:

Some in the labour movement are considering a special mediator who could go to a workplace to resolve a dispute.

What sort of mediator? Brian Burke or Mark Latham? There could be a whole range of them. I was reminded of the article in the West Australian about a fellow by the name of Joe Mcdonald. It says:

Unionist Joe McDonald has vowed to continue breaking the law by trespassing on Perth building sites to conduct union business after police were called to remove him from a site yesterday when he refused about two dozen requests to leave.

It goes on to say:

The assistant secretary of the Construction, Forestry , Mining and Energy Union conceded it was the fourth time in the past fortnight that police had been called to building sites to remove him, but on two occasions he left before they arrived.

It is illegal for Mr McDonald to enter building sites ... after losing both his State and Federal right of entry permits for behaviour, including bullying and harassment.

This is the perfect sort of mediator that Sharan Burrow might have been considering! It gets better:

But the controversial unionist admitted for the first time yesterday that the law would not stop him entering building sites.

No wonder Sharan Burrow wants to change the law. She wants to bring mediators like Joe Mcdonald into the workplace. This is policy No. 7. Seven policies in seven months!

They are not only walking both sides of the street when it comes to unfair dismissal laws; they are stuck on a Canberra roundabout and they cannot get off. When is the Labor Party going to come up with a policy? At this stage the only policy that Australian business can understand is the ACTU’s policy, where they are going to have trade unionists going back into every workplace, where they are going to reintroduce the job-destroying unfair dismissal laws and where they are going to leave small business and Australian workers behind.

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