Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. She entered this parliament on the basis of restoring dignity to workers, and the government that she joined did that. It did it by replacing the discredited Work Choices legislation with Fair Work Australia. Very interestingly, in that excruciating interview that the member for North Sydney was involved in last night, when he was asked what their IR policy was, he said, 'It's the government's policy; we don't intend to change it.' So that policy that they went to the election on, that they got trounced on, they have now ditched. But does anyone believe them? On this side of the House we do not.

So far as restoring dignity to the workplace goes, we did it in a number of ways. We restored fairness, we restored dignity, we restored good-faith bargaining and, most of all, we restored balance. Industrial relations, when those opposite sat in office, was to take a one-sided approach, to always back the employer and bash the worker. We not only restored all of those values—Australian values, Labor values—but enshrined them in legislation.

I am also asked how our legislation supported the economy. It supported it in a number of ways. Over four years we have seen the fastest employment growth ever in the history of this country, and that is projected to double in the next eight years. That has been done on the basis of restoring fairness as well as the sound fiscal and economic policies that this government has introduced. We have also lowered industrial disputes compared to the number there were when the Liberals were in office. Most recently, we demonstrated how, by using the act, we could get Qantas flying again, after Qantas took the precipitous decision of locking out its workforce and grounding the airline.

I go again to the interview that the member for North Sydney sweated over—as well he might—last night. In that interview, when he was asked the question:

… When did you first hear … that it was considering the option of grounding its fleet or locking out staff?

he said: 'Oh, weeks ago.' So here is the member for North Sydney at least admitting that it was weeks ago that they knew. So here is the Labor government—

Mr Hockey interjecting—

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