Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

'That is rubbish'—seriously? They've fought against improving safety in workplaces on every single occasion. I say this now: why would anyone with any modicum of intelligence and support that party over there when at every single opportunity—and we'll go back to the previous member's views; even back in the eighties with the Industrial Relations Commission and then the Fair Work Commission—it has done nothing but fight against every single attempt to improve the wages and conditions of working Australians?

It's in their DNA to fight against it, because all they can do is attack people on low and middle incomes. We saw that through the last tax cuts. Remember those? You wouldn't give low and middle-income earners tax cuts unless you could give the high-income earners one. That was what you fought for vehemently. You couldn't find time to bring an anticorruption commission in; we know why. But you fought against supporting Australian workers on low and middle incomes getting tax cuts. So the next time you sit there and talk about union thugs, think about those people in the hospitals, the cleaners, the people who have worked their backsides off day and night through this pandemic, the people that deliver the food and the people that look after child care to keep this country running while you sit there your backside and attack them.

Your own leader was a former union member. He was a member of the police association. Do you call him a union thug? He's not a member of the union now, so you can still call him a thug but not a union member. Each and every one of these organisations works hard and fights strong for Australian families and workers, and you should be ashamed for bringing this to parliament. (Time expired)

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