Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

The short answer to the honourable member’s question is no. If the honourable member had cared to even look, for example, at the report of the Victorian government official into this he would have seen what they stand to gain. The official, I again remind the House, saw fit to refer it to what the Leader of the Opposition referred to yesterday as ‘snivelling liars’—namely, the Office of Workplace Services—in his cowardly defamation of them yesterday. That is what it was: cowardly defamation. If the honourable member opposite had cared to look at the full details of the report, he would have seen, as a result of this agreement, that those workers stand to achieve a net gain of 12 per cent under these agreements.

The other thing which was not revealed by either of the gentlemen asking these questions is that, on my advice, there are some 500 collective agreements—half of which have been negotiated by unions in Australia and contain clauses in relation to bonus payments such as are contained in this particular agreement. It has been good enough for union officials in Australia to negotiate collective agreements in the past which contain bonus clauses but apparently it is not good enough in relation to this particular agreement. What hypocrisy!

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