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

I'd love nothing more than to point out how some of the commentary about our policies is just plain wrong. For nearly 10 years, wages were kept low as a deliberate design feature of the previous government's management of the economy, and the scare campaigns being run now by those with vested interests are good media fodder but are completely unfounded. Let's fact-check some of the claims that have been made over the last couple of weeks by the coalition and some of their supporters. First of all they say there'll be coast-to-coast strikes, ignoring the fact that nothing in relation to the system for industrial action at all will change compared to the system that was under the former government, except for the fact that there will now be a requirement for conciliation first—an additional requirement before industrial action occurs.

Claims are being made that we'll see pattern bargaining. Again, there are no changes compared to the legislation that existed under the former government. There are claims that businesses will be roped in to industrywide agreements—plain wrong, and Senator Brockman got skewered on that yesterday. The fact is that an employer can choose to be part of multi-employer bargaining— (Time expired)