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

They laugh, but we had Sharan Burrow, the President of the ACTU, on the phone to Sky News this morning indicating that she had lined up a meeting with the Leader of the Opposition in order to tell him what the policies of the Australian Labor Party will be so far as industrial relations are concerned, and we had Mr Robertson from New South Wales, whose previous claim to fame was threatening the leadership of the previous Leader of the Opposition to ensure that he made a promise to rip up Australian workplace agreements. Here we had the union movement out once again within minutes, almost, of a new Leader of the Opposition, telling him what his policy would be.

And what did he say in his first press conference—this first letter from St Kevin to the people of Australia? What did he say? He said: ‘I’m going to implement the policies that have already been put in place.’ So what we have are the same tired, old prescriptions. All that is old is new again. What Ms Burrow and Mr Robertson have said is that, basically, there may be a new leader, but it is the same old Labor.

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