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

I thank the member for Kingston for his question. I know that the unemployment rate in Kingston in 1996 was 11.6 per cent. It has come down to 6.8 per cent. It is still too high, but it has come down by nearly five percentage points, and I think that is good for the people of Kingston.

I am aware of this extensive, comprehensive, dirty tricks manual. I am also aware that the Leader of the Opposition, in the Australian on 10 February this year said:

·              The parliamentary party determines the alternative policy for the next election, not the ACTU.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition said, on 22 April:

The ACTU doesn’t tell Labor what to do ... this is not about the ACTU and what they want.

I thought very carefully about those words, ‘The ACTU doesn’t tell Labor what to do.’ I had a look at a few of the speeches of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and I compared them to what is in the ACTU’s dirty tricks manual, and it was very interesting. Example No. 1 comes from the dirty tricks manual, 28 April:

An AWA can be a condition of the job or the condition of a promotion.

Gillard:

You sign or you don’t get the job. You sign or you don’t get the promotion.

Example No. 2, from the ACTU manual—

See this speech in context