Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will go through the chair, Mr Deputy President. As I said, through you, Mr Deputy President, Senator McGauran should get out and talk to young people who are employed in the hospitality industry, the retail industry and in some of the transport and construction industries. Do you know what will come and bite this government in the backside, Mr Deputy President? It is the question: how dare you go out there and look the next generation of Australians in the eye and tell them that this is the best thing for them? Mr Howard and this government have chucked decency and fairness out the back door; let us not make any mistake about that.

Labor has a plan. It is not for the next six or seven weeks of the election period, like that of Mr Howard. Labor has a plan for the next 10 years. Labor will install decency and fairness back into the Australian industrial relations system—decency that will create well-paying jobs for the next generation of Australians, not the drive for the bottom and the lowest common denominator. Mr Deputy President, I am sure that in your great state of Queensland it is fantastic to have this mining boom. But what will happen when this boom subsides? What will happen when it slows down? We can go back to the days when employment was running a little bit higher than what it is. The government have overseen the greatest skills gap in history. They have sat on their hands for the last 11 years. They have done nothing about the skills dilemma that we face in this country. The voters of Australia will have the opportunity to decide. Do they want decency and fairness? Do they want balance in the workplace? Do they want the best for their children and their grandchildren? We will know very soon, as the voters of Australia will have the opportunity to say which way they want to take Australia’s industrial landscape into the future. Decency and fairness is something that has built this country over the past 106 years of Federation—(Time expired)