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

The Howard government all but stopped awards. They stripped Australian workers of their workplace safety net. We know that; that is a fact. The extreme Work Choices system stripped workers of wages and conditions. It left millions of workers without protection from unfair dismissal. And now we see them at it again. The Leader of the Opposition is on record now as saying that he will remove unfair dismissal protection from approximately two million Australian workers. He will strip their penalty rates—unfinished business of the Liberal Party indeed. In his book, Battlelines, Mr Abbott talks about unfinished business, and now we know what the unfinished business is: it is bringing back Work Choices.

I will go back to what Senator Abetz said in that speech, because it was a beauty! Apparently, Senator Abetz regaled his audience with the tale of how the state Liberals in that year during their election campaign had answered a question from the unions on industrial relations reform by saying that it had no intention of making changes and that any need for change that emerged would be subject to full consultation. We know how that worked out. (Time expired)