Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

Exactly, Mr Speaker. Not content with his first crime against the truth, the Leader of the Opposition is now attempting another crime against the truth. They say that, of course, the first crime is always the hardest, and after that it gets a lot easier. In the election campaign, we saw the ludicrous 'Mediscare' campaign—his crime against the truth, frightening old ladies by having CFMEU thugs ringing them about 9.30 at night and telling them lies about what we were going to do or not do to Medicare.

Now, we are seeing the Leader of the Opposition in an act of extreme audacity. We have to admire his capacity for audaciousness because this is the man who, when he had the opportunity as secretary of the AWU, routinely traded away the penalty rates of the people that he represented in the most low-paid jobs in Australia, like cleaners, like people who worked for Chiquita Mushrooms, like people who worked in the circus. He did not just do this once or twice. It became a very routine habit. For the Clean Event workers, he did it twice. In 1998 and 2006 he signed EBAs that traded away their penalty rates. With Chiquita Mushrooms, he did it in 2001 and 2004—trading away their penalty rates.

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