Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Batman is nodding his head. He was very quick to go to the press to say, ‘The MUA has got it wrong.’ The old union boss was telling the new union bosses that that is not the way it is. I thought that the best thing to do to find out about this was to go to the ALP website and look for a report on the ALP conference. When I looked at the website, I found that it said:

The Platform as adopted at 44th ALP National Conference (April 27-29-2007) will be posted shortly.

I do not know whether the honourable member for Batman or the MUA has got it right as to the policy and what the Leader of the Opposition agreed to in relation to waterfront reform. But I am suspicious that the deal with the MUA will be another return to the old ways. The Leader of the Opposition is fond of saying that the resources boom will come to an end. Well, it will come to an end if Labor are elected and they return the old-style union dominated policies to our waterfront. If we cannot get exports across the ports, yes, the boom will end and so will the boom for our economy, and it will be as a result of mismanagement, not as a result of world events and the performance of Australian exporters.

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