Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. Does the Fair Work Bill implement Labor’s policy Forward with Fairness, and what are the impediments to the government implementing its election policy?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Franklin for her question. I know she is deeply interested in ensuring that workers in her electorate are treated fairly at work. Last week the Leader of the Opposition said to the Australian people that Work Choices was dead. Clearly, his political strategy at that time was to pretend Work Choices was dead and, if he was ever in a position to, to bring Work Choices back. But unfortunately the Leader of the Opposition’s political strategy is now lying in tatters at his feet, because despite his staking his leadership on saying Work Choices is dead, last night in this House members of the Liberal Party and members of the Opposition came out loud and proud as Work Choices supporters, one after another, as they spoke in this House.

I refer to just one contribution, a contribution by the member for Hume, who does not appear to be in the chamber at the moment. Last night he said:

Quite obviously, if there are no amendments which address my concerns regarding the rights, privacy and economic freedom of small business as outlined by me in my contribution tonight to this debate, I will not be supporting this bill.

One after another, they came out as Work Choices supporters, loud and proud, last night. They went to their party room meeting this morning and rolled their leader. They want to be Work Choices supporters to a man and a woman, because the Liberal Party is the party of Work Choices. Of course, what they need to do now, and what they are in the course of doing, is to find a misrepresentation of the Fair Work Bill so big that it would justify them publicly moving away from the rhetoric of ‘Work Choices is dead’ to not supporting the Fair Work Bill. So they are prepared to make any misrepresentation that comes to their minds in order to try and extricate themselves from this political position and to vote against the Fair Work Bill. The campaign of misrepresentation has already started.

Talk about slow learners. They are doing exactly what they did in 2006 and 2007. What they tried to do with Work Choices before the election is say to the Australian people: ‘Don’t look at the unfairness, don’t look at how people are losing their penalty rates and overtime, don’t look at the fact that there are no unfair dismissal rights or that the industrial umpire is dying, don’t look at that; look over here at the union bogeyman.’ That was their political trick in the lead-up to the 2007 election. Of course, the Australian people said to them, ‘Don’t treat us as if we are two-year-olds. We can see right through this and we can see that you are trying to distract our attention from the fundamental unfairness of Work Choices.’ Well, they are at it again, because they are now lashing out, in their twisting and turning to get away from Work Choices’ dead rhetoric, by raising what the bill provides for union right of entry and what it provides in relation to access to records to investigate breaches.

The myth they are trying to make is that, somehow, never before in this country have there been these kinds of abilities in the industrial relations system. No-one should fall for this myth, because the provisions in the Fair Work Bill about right of entry and access to employee records are basically the provisions that applied in this country from 1988 to 2005. If anybody actually wants to do the comparison they should get out their workplace relations law for the time period between and compare it. In making this myth, they do not want the Australian public to know that. They are pretending to the Australian public that somehow this is something different. We are not going to allow them to get away with these distortions. All they are trying to do is cover up the fact that they are and always will be the party of Work Choices. If they vote against the government’s Fair Work Bill, all that is about is ensuring that Work Choices stays for longer. What they want, what they have always wanted and what they supported in government was a Work Choices policy of rip-offs. That is what they support now and that is what they have come out with today, loud and proud: Work Choices supporters, one and all. No-one should look at what the Leader of the Opposition says; they should watch what he does to support Work Choices.