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

The shadow minister can make a personal explanation if he wants to deny that these are his words. The quote is as follows:

What the government’s saying is that they are just going to implement these new awards holus bolus on January 1 2010. What that means is if you’re in a state which has a lower award base than another state you’re going to face a massive increase in your operating costs from the 1st of January.

This is absolute rubbish and the shadow minister knows that—and he would have known it when he was saying it, because not 24 hours before we had been debating in this parliament the nature of the five-year transition. Then, in order to whip up fear and hysteria, he deliberately makes a public statement that he knows when he is making it does not replicate the provisions of the legislation or what is happening with award modernisation. He has gone out there to try and scare honest, hardworking small business people into thinking that modern awards come into force in full effect on 1 January 2010 when he knows that there is a fully available five-year transition period. In fact, he knows that so well that he and his political party voted for it when they voted for our first piece of Fair Work legislation.

Can I say this: Australians should not be misled by the twisting and turning and misrepresentations of the party that so desperately want to keep Work Choices. This is all that this is about—trying to run a fear campaign so in the next few sitting weeks they can go to the Senate and hold up two pieces of Fair Work legislation to prevent the start of our system on 1 July and ensure that Work Choices lives a few days, weeks or months longer. That is what this campaign is about. It is a campaign of fear, a campaign of misrepresentation and part of their continuing campaign to keep Work Choices—which they will always stand for. They will always stand for ripping the safety net away from hardworking Australians.

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