Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Because of the guillotine on this debate, I regret that I will not have the opportunity to contribute more substantively, but I want to make a couple of quick remarks in relation to the amendments and the substance of the Workplace Relations Amendment (A Stronger Safety Net) Bill 2007.

I remember the Work Choices legislation being introduced with a fanfare of paid publicity saying that the entitlements of persons under it would be protected by law. They were not. The consequence of this is that this government have suffered a sledging of a monumental nature in the public debate, and rightly so. Now, in another act of scheming and deception, they have put forward trivial amounts of legislation under an equally misleading title to provide some limited cover for legislation that still remains fundamentally unfair.

The government seek to put into the mouth of the member for Lalor, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, an intention to add further matters in relation to the matters that she proposes by way of amendments. The truth is that the opposition does not propose further minor amendments; it proposes to tear up this legislation and to replace it completely. That is what it will do when it forms government upon the realisation that the community will not accept this kind of deceit, this kind of wrongful taking of its own taxpayers’ money to fund something that is so adverse to the community interest.

The member for Calare has quite rightly raised what must be a continuing issue of substance for those who have entered into AWAs on the conditions that were not protected by law, that are unfair and that will remain under this so-called fairness test unaffected by these changes. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has raised a whole series of very sensible, practical improvements that could be made to this trivial ameliorative measure, and they are being rejected. Instead, the government purports to speak for the opposition in relation to its intent. The intent is straightforward, it has been well expressed, but the larger intent of the opposition is to form government and to replace these laws with laws that are balanced and fair for the whole of the community.

I have some words of advice in relation to this general debate: there is no prospect whatsoever that this government will get any traction with the Australian public as long as it sits on government benches acting as if it is in the opposition. Every speech that now is given by the other side imputes to the Labor Party motives which it does not hold. Every speech that is given by the government is a sledge against the opposition. Every speech is an act of desperation rather than an articulation of the values and principles that underlie its actions, because the values and principles that underlie its actions are actually values and principles that are being rejected by the Australian public—and rightly so.

The opposition support this measure, not because they regard it as a fairness measure but because they do recognise that at least some people who have been treated unfairly will be able to get some amelioration of the disadvantage that this government has imposed on them. It does redress to a slight degree some of the lies and deceit that were peddled by paid advertising saying that these entitlements were protected by law when they were not. It allows the opposition to articulate some of the larger vision that it will put into effect when it forms government if the Australian public give it the respect, which it hopes to earn through the articulation of the principles that have underpinned the work of the leader, deputy leader and the shadow ministry in putting forward large initiatives to the Australian public not just in industrial relations but across the board. This government simply sounds tired. It sounds unable to articulate its own rationale for its existence. It can only attack the opposition. The opposition has now become the leader of debate across a whole range of issues and, sadly, this debate has reflected that very great reality.

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