Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

They will do anything rather than discuss their obsession with Work Choices and their antiworker attitude and they will do anything to shut down question time rather than discuss the minerals resource rent tax that was introduced into the parliament today. What is in common with those two issues is that those opposite will always stand up for the big end of town; they will always stand up for the few not for the many; they will always stand up for privilege; and they will always stand up for an abuse of rights.

We have seen it writ large—have a look at the vox pops about what people think about the grounding of Qantas. People think that their rights were impugned by the management of Qantas; yet there is not a word from those opposite. They pretend that they think we should have intervened, but we know that ideologically they are against arbitration. They are against fair bargaining. It is there in black and white, written down. We know that we do not have to believe him if he just says it, but he told us on 7:30 that you can believe things that are written down. It is there in his book, Battlelineshe did not do much as a shadow minister, but he did write a book. It is there for all to see.

And what are they doing again today, the day we have introduced the minerals resource rent tax that will lead to better superannuation, less company tax and better infrastructure in regional communities? They are standing up for Rio Tinto, BHP and all the big companies who say that they can afford to pay this tax. That is the extraordinary thing; they are saying: 'We can afford to do it. We want to make a contribution to the national economy'—and even that is not good enough for those opposite.

Qantas say they want to negotiate with their unions—and that is not good enough for them either. Those opposite are in favour of lock-outs not negotiation. They are an antiworker party standing up for privilege. It is what they have stood for for decades, but they have got worse as they have wheedled out one by one all the moderates from their party so that what remains is a hard-right ideologically antiworker party driven by the sort of extremism that we have seen in recent days.

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