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

Fuddle. And before the last election these were the people that walked to the dispatch box and defended Work Choices day in, day out. Just a few short months ago they were at the dispatch box defending Work Choices. The current Leader of the Opposition talked about how much political capital and philosophical determination had been invested in workplace relations. The member for North Sydney, then the relevant minister, said in the context of the election campaign:

The workplace relations system of the Coalition is providing benefits to workers, businesses and the economy as a whole. It must be retained …

They believed in Work Choices before the election, and the truth is they actually believe in it now. They are pretending that they have had some road-to-Damascus conversion and they no longer believe in Work Choices. They are pretending that they no longer believe in the Australian workplace agreements, though one would have to say in the last 48 hours the degree of confusion on that point from the opposition has been absolutely remarkable. But apparently, if the statements of the opposition are now to be believed, they will give passage to Labor’s bill through the parliament, and indeed today coalition members at the relevant Senate committee for the bill did not vote at all on a resolution to put the timetable for the Senate inquiry back to the timetable that Labor had asked for.

Originally the Liberal Party in its defence of Work Choices had sought to draw this matter out to keep Work Choices going as long as humanly possible. Today the Liberal Party, confronted with a proposition that they come back to Labor’s timetable, that they deal with this bill before Easter, did not even vote on it. So we are now in a situation where we believe—it is hard to know; it changes minute by minute with the flip, flop, flap and fuddle—that the opposition will vote for Labor’s bill and we believe that the opposition will process Labor’s bill in the Senate before Easter, as Labor originally asked.

What could cause this remarkable change of heart from a party that believed in Work Choices and has always believed in industrial relations extremism and advocated it right up until yesterday? I would have to say I think I know what has fed into this change of heart, because I have come upon a secret Liberal strategy document. It is the secret plan that shows why the opposition has now repositioned on Work Choices. This is a secret plan that says that the opposition would be best advantaged by adopting Labor’s policy and offering to fast-track it. Isn’t that starting to happen? They are fast-tracking Labor’s policy now, as we ask. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is echoing Labor’s words, talking about a fair and flexible industrial relations system. They are adopting this policy of pretending to close the gap on industrial relations and endorse Labor’s plan. This is a policy that talks about them losing their reputation for industrial relations extremism and Work Choices by pretending to endorse and give swift passage to Labor’s policies.

When you analyse this secret plan, the position of endorsing Labor’s plans and giving it fast track is not because they should change their view substantively—that is not what this secret document says they are going to do. They are going to change their view cosmetically, because if they change their view cosmetically—

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