Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I didn't catch the mumbling that was going on there, but I will say this: let's turn our attention to this bill before the chair at the moment. The Attorney-General, during question time, was asked over and over and over again, 'Will you guarantee that workers will not be worse off under your bill and your industrial relations framework that you're introducing in this House?' And what did we see from the Attorney-General? We saw base politics. We saw denial. We saw rejection of contentions of questions. But there is one simple thing we didn't see, and that was an acceptance of the truth that this industrial relations framework that this government has bowled up to this place is a reflection of what they are all about, and that is leaving Australian workers worse off and cutting the pay and conditions of Australian workers. Despite the Attorney-General time after time trying to make a little bit of political ground on this, he simply failed and backed down. He was again shamed into pulling one part of the bill from this place. Just like they pulled the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill after the member for New England's amendments were bowled up to this place, he pulled the better off overall test from this bill. But that's not the only thing that is stopping us from supporting this bill. There are other parts to this bill—

Mr Falinski interjecting—

I can still hear the member for Mackellar talking about how much he's looking forward to supporting the member for New England's amendments to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation bill, but I'm going to come back to the matter before the chair. I'm not going to be distracted by the member for Mackellar's interjections. This bill simply leaves Australian workers worse off—

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