Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery) Share this | Hansard source

The government’s new Fair Work system is a simpler, fairer and more balanced system for the 21st century. It provides 10 minimum standards through the National Employment Standards. Coming back to comments made by the coalition in the last fortnight, Senator Abetz said in the last fortnight that Work Choices is dead. But I picked up in one of the local Tasmanian papers comments by Greg Barns, former Liberal staffer. What did he say about Senator Abetz? He said, ‘And the danger of hard right types like Senator Abetz is that they often disguise their true political intentions with comforting, vague words during an election campaign that are then used to their advantage to implement policy.’ He then referred to a speech that Senator Abetz gave in 1992 to the HR Nicholls Society, where he comforted unions that there would no changes. What did Senator Abetz say? He used political speak that left open the door in the event that a need to change things arose. (Time expired)