Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

We have today a very clear demonstration of the political priorities of Malcolm Turnbull in the Senate chamber: stop the Senate protecting penalty rates. That's what this has all been about, Senator Cormann and Senator Brandis. If you were wondering why, in the debate in relation to Senator Dastyari, there was one opposition senator—me—who did not speak for the full time, it is because we understood where the numbers were in the chamber. If you wonder why they roll out Senator Macdonald and Senator Reynolds, it's because they wanted to delay debate for as long as possible to prevent this Senate from protecting penalty rates.

Senator Reynolds interjecting—

Senator Reynolds says that's not true. Well, have the debate. The majority in the Senate chamber want to debate the four-yearly review bill that Senator Cash is summing up, which has had many hours of debate. There will be an amendment moved to that to protect Australian workers' penalty rates. The government knows that. So the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth, the Minister for Finance of the Commonwealth and the Manager of Government Business all come in here and run as many procedural arguments and delaying tactics as possible. They make sure the Leader of the Government in the Senate is here so he gets the call over me. They make sure he's here, because he's not off doing important things but he's got to come in here and stop workers getting their penalty rates.

Well, I tell you what: you might win in here today, but Australian workers know what your priorities are. They will know that Malcolm Turnbull's priority today in the Senate chamber is to ensure that this chamber is not able to vote on the protection of Australian workers' penalty rates. Isn't it amazing? What a government, hey? What a government. They've had to backflip on the royal commission—oh, here's the relevance deprivation himself!