Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and follows on from his answer to the previous question and his reference to the AAP report and a collective union or non-union agreement. Isn’t it the case that Martin Donnelly employees in Canberra unanimously expressed a preference to negotiate a collective agreement some four months ago? Isn’t it the case that the 22—not the 10 or 12—Martin Donnelly Electrical Services employees who continue to refuse to sign the AWA are still expressing a preference to negotiate a collective agreement and that that constitutes more than 50 per cent of the workforce? Isn’t it the case that as late as 2 pm today neither the sparkies who are working at the building site nor their union representative had been informed that any sort of collective agreement, union or non-union, was on the table, union or non-union? Minister, why don’t you just take the Prime Minister on one of his walks, less than 500 metres down the road, and let the sparkies themselves tell you they do not want your AWA?

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