Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

which the Greens are opposing. Consistency has never been a strong suit of the Australian Greens. With Senator Rice's entry into the Senate as a newly elected senator from Victoria, I had hoped—quite foolishly, it appears—that there might be some integrity and robustness added to the Greens in the contributions in this debate but, in a very short period of time, it is clear that Senator Rice has fallen into lock step with her Greens colleagues of not being concerned about the integrity of their arguments. In relation to Senator Rice, this has been a policy implemented by Labor that has been around for about two years, implemented in the death throes of the previous government.

Her argument on cheap fuel, I have dealt with. I have also indicated that taxpayers' money—if you want to make money available to fellow Australians you first have to take it out of other Australians' pockets, unless you borrow it from overseas. The matters on which she opined in relation to annual leave and long-service leave, in any event, are not covered by FEG.

I turn to Senator Cameron's contribution. My letter clearly indicated that we had no intention of abolishing the entitlements guarantee, and the person to whom I wrote clearly had that in mind when expressing their concern. One wonders where they would have got that concern from. Senator Cameron indicated that this is a cost-cutting measure. Yes, it is a budget measure. It is, regrettably, a measure that needs to be taken to make our budget balance. How else are we going to repay the huge debt that has been left us? Do we simply defer it and say, 'Look, we're going to have a great time and let the kids pay it off'? Absolutely irresponsible. We believe in intergenerational equity. We believe in intergenerational justice. We believe that this generation needs to take into account its financial responsibilities and not leave a legacy of deficit and debt as previous Labor governments have on such a regular basis.

You know when Labor are struggling. Paul Howes has belled the cat on that. Former ACTU president and former distinguished Labor minister Martin Ferguson has said it. You know Labor are losing a debate in the area of workplace relations when they mention the words Work Choices. Sure enough, Senator Cameron did exactly that. It is that which so many other Labor luminaries—genuine luminaries—have warned the Australian people about, that when Labor are losing an argument in this space they will always have recourse to chant 'workplace relations'.

Senator Cameron said that the government does not have a jobs plan. I say to the honourable senator that he is wrong. We got rid of the carbon tax—