Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
3:23 pm
I wish to make a personal explanation.
Tony Smith Speaker
Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?
Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Yes, very grievously.
Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
The Attorney-General has been using my remarks in our pre-election policy to justify his pay-cutting laws, which they did not tell the voters about before the last election. It was done in three ways. He quoted from a speech. He said that he was using my Labor policies as inspiration for his pay-cutting laws. The first of the three ways in which that's wrong is that it's untrue. I spoke about megaprojects, not projects of $250 million. I certainly did not speak about greenfields agreements without unions; they were to be with unions. And we did not speak about eight years. That was the untrue part of his quote. But he also omitted other parts of our industrial relations policies.
This cheeky fellow then didn't mention penalty rate cuts, which we proposed—
Tony Smith Speaker
The member for Maribyrnong will refer to people by their correct titles.
Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
The Attorney-General, formerly known as the cheeky fellow.
Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
I apologise. He didn't mention, as they proposed their pay cut to the workers who've gone through COVID, that we want to restore the penalty rates cut by the government. He hasn't got a policy to call out the sham contracting which affects hundreds of thousands of workers, and there is no policy to look after labour hire workers.
Tony Smith Speaker
The member for Maribyrnong has shown where he's been misrepresented.
Bill Shorten Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme
Thank you, Mr Speaker.