Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I note that the agreement that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has in her hand would have been negotiated under the previous government. But, putting that to one side, I will explain Labor’s industrial relations policies, which can be read by any of the members of the Work Choices political party in this parliament. If they read those policies, they will find that you can make a collective agreement which has in it flexibilities but the underlying benchmark is a no disadvantage test against the full award. The underlying benchmark under Work Choices in its initial phase was against five protected conditions—only five—which means that everything else could have been signed away, and routinely was. Indeed, the then Howard-Costello government advocated the trading away of conditions for nothing in the example of Billy.

See this speech in context