Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

And I appreciate that the opposition does not like to be reminded of 2007. But the delusion that is happening on the opposition benches is that somehow the workplace relations debate in 2007 was not about Work Choices and not about the abolition of Australian workplace agreements and the eradication of all individual statutory employment agreements from Australia’s workplace relations system. That was the government’s policy which was put to the people in our policy documents, and the bill today implements it.

I was asked about certainty for employers and employees as we move forward on industrial relations with our bill. Our bill came to the parliament today. The last time this parliament dealt with a piece of industrial relations legislation, we dealt with the then government’s so-called fairness test. I remind the House that the so-called fairness test was processed within four sitting weeks, inclusive of a Senate inquiry. The then government, the now opposition, believed that four sitting weeks was an appropriate length of time, inclusive of a Senate inquiry, for parliamentary scrutiny of a piece of industrial relations legislation. That was in circumstances where they had announced their policy intentions in early May and the bill came to the parliament in late May.

We announced our policy intentions in April and provided implementation details of our policy in August. If four weeks was good enough for the processing of the so-called fairness test, inclusive of a Senate inquiry, then it is good enough for the processing of Labor’s legislation. The members opposite, including most particularly the Manager of Opposition Business in the House, must agree that that is an appropriate time, because that is the time he provided when he was Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. We therefore look to the opposition to facilitate passage of this legislation, inclusive of any Senate inquiry, before Easter.

I say to every member of the House that, if Labor’s legislation is unduly delayed beyond that point, it is not the Labor Party that they on the opposition benches are frustrating; it is the will of the Australian people who voted for this when they voted at the last election. If there is any worker who is offered an Australian workplace agreement and has to take it in that time, who gets a take it or leave it AWA put in front of them that rips off a basic condition like redundancy pay, if the opposition has manipulated it to extend the time of Work Choices, that Australian will know exactly who ripped those conditions off them.

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