Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I'm looking forward to the supplementary questions because we might get to our fourth and fifth scare campaigns in one question time alone. This one is yet another one that is completely baseless and completely misunderstands how industrial relations actually works in this country. What we've got is a coalition that is so intent on running scare campaigns to stop wages rising that they are clutching at straws, making things up and misinterpreting how their own laws actually work in order to throw mud at a government that is trying to do something about wage rises. It's actually a little bit sad to watch the coalition so completely misunderstand how industrial relations works that they would be making up these kinds of things. Anyone could just look at how those words operate—industry-wide; multi-employer. They're actually kind of different concepts. Do you know what? Industry-wide bargaining is also different to single-interest bargaining, which is another thing that we're providing for. They are completely different concepts. What you're talking about is not part of the government's agenda. It never has been part of the government's agenda. The only agenda this government has is to get wages moving again.