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

Yesterday the Prime Minister and I sought to ensure the destruction of the remaining Work Choices propaganda of the Howard-Costello government. We arranged for the recycling of 436,000 Work Choices booklets. We made sure that they were taken off to the recyclers so that they could be turned into things more useful—things like scribble paper for children. There were some suggestions from the media about other uses that these paper products could be put to, but I will not go there. But we did ensure that these booklets would be recycled. Of course, this was part of the $121 million propaganda blitz of the Howard-Costello government to try and sell its grossly unfair Work Choices laws, which stripped basic working conditions away from Australian families. We know that even that government thought it was best to start shredding these booklets, because 3½ million of them were in fact sent off to the recyclers before the election. The waste of taxpayers’ money was just amazing.

I have to say that I allowed myself to believe yesterday that the Prime Minister and I had brought an end to the scourge of Work Choices propaganda in this country, just as we are committed to bringing an end to the scourge of Work Choices itself. I had allowed myself to believe yesterday that we had achieved that goal, but overnight I have discovered more. Whilst the Four Corners program was exhibiting Liberal rats in the ranks, I found 100,000 Work Choices propaganda mousepads lying around from the days of the Howard-Costello government. I am going to ask the House to help me with a very difficult issue here, which is this: one can easily recycle booklets; it is less clear what one can do to recycle mousepads. What I am committed to doing—

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