Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

Today, we have chosen to debate this topic as the matter of public importance rather than productivity and the economy, in spite of the fact that the government have said all week that they want a debate on the economy and on productivity. When the shadow Treasurer submitted an MPI for debate in this House, in order to have a proper debate between himself and the Treasurer, they cut and run. For the first time since 2005, they submitted an MPI and ensured that it was the matter that would be debated today.

Of course, we know that after they did that, they then proceeded to not actually debate the issue—to not debate the matter that is before the parliament today. And that is not surprising, given that today it was revealed, on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, exactly what sort of a campaign we are going to see on industrial relations in 2007.

We know that there is now going to be a BCA-ACCI campaign and that, specifically, the campaign director is the chief Liberal strategist, Mark Textor. The operations director is a former senior Liberal official, Mr Tony Barry, and the campaign committee includes former Liberal advisers Peter Anderson and Brett Hogan. Of course, we also know that Crosby Textor is run by the former Liberal Party director, Lynton Crosby. He is the person who is conducting the campaign.

Today, in parliament, we sought guarantees that this would not be a taxpayer funded through research campaign on behalf of the Liberal Party by the BCA and ACCI. Of course, we did not get any assurance of that.

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