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

What we know—and the former minister really should be a bit more wise about his interjections—is that they never properly coded or analysed the data to be able to tell whether the loss of these conditions was compensated for. The minister could have authorised analysis of that data, but he did not, because he did not want to know the answer. He deliberately wanted to run a system where he did not want to know the answer. What we do know is that these conditions were ripped away by a government that put the information into the dark and did not want Australians to know. What we do know is that Australian workplace agreements ripped away those basic conditions, and we also know that many of those agreements had in them no particular compensation in terms of the amount of money that was paid to people. This is the system that the former government put into place in this country. This is the system that they argued for in the lead-up to the last election, and this is the system that the Australian people voted against and rejected. They voted in favour of Labor’s fair and balanced system but, in arrogant contempt of the views of the Australian people, the Liberal Party—informed by their born-to-rule mentality—have today voted for a continuation of Work Choices. They have voted to spit in the face of the Australian people and to deny them fairness and balance at work. Every Australian should know this and every Australian should judge them on the basis of it.

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