Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Parry. The opposition to Work Choices is not driven out of concern for workers and their families, although this is the label used by those who attack us; it is driven out of a desire to re-establish union power over the industrial relations system of this nation. If Labor are elected at the end of the year, there will be wall-to-wall Labor governments in Australia. There will be no checks and balances. There will be a union dominated government.

But, of course, that is what the Labor Party want. Greg Combet let it out when he made the comment that what the Labor Party want to see in Australia is a return to union domination. How many former presidents of the ACTU do we have in federal parliament? There is Jennie George, Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean. We now have Mr Shorten joining us and Doug Cameron, and I am sure that Mr Combet wants to abandon the union movement because he wants a cosy little seat in parliament. One by one, they are coming into federal parliament. This is at a time when less than 20 per cent of the private workforce is a member of the union.