Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

That’s an old trick, Julia. On a Friday night, they released their draft industrial relations policy, which, amongst many other things, stated that the Labor Party wanted to see a reintroduction of pattern bargaining. Then, to another audience, on the Sunday program, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said, ‘But we’ll stop the flow-on impact of wage increases in the mining industry going to others.’

I am intrigued by this. If you have a mechanic employed by the mine, under the Labor Party’s policy how would you prevent other mechanics in Sydney or Melbourne from being caught up in the same wage net? That is what the Labor Party want to do. They want to endanger people’s jobs. They are going to introduce policies that put upward pressure on inflation. Of course, that puts upward pressure on interest rates.

It is again a case of the Labor Party trying to walk both sides of the street. On the one hand, they are giving one message to the union movement, saying, ‘Don’t worry, comrades, all will be okay—you’ll be marching into every workplace,’ on the dark day that the Leader of the Opposition ever gets elected. On the other hand, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is trying to tell the business community and Australians that the economy will remain strong under Labor. We have caught them out again. The Labor Party’s industrial relations policy is bad for the economy and bad for Australian jobs.

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