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

I am explaining to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that this is a government that is including small business in policymaking because we value their views. When we listen to the views of small business about policymaking, what they tell us is they did not appreciate being at the back of a queue hundreds of thousands of agreements long, waiting five, six or seven months for an answer as to whether or not their agreement had been passed by the Workplace Authority. This was the administrative shambles that the former government left to this government to resolve in industrial relations, and resolve it we will by delivering a fair, balanced and flexible system that will work for the needs of small business, which will mean that they are not caught up in endless red tape. But it will do something that members opposite do not understand, never will understand and never have understood: it will extend fairness to Australian working families.

We know that the opposition are opposed to a fair industrial relations system. We know that they are still, with every statement they make, entering into an ode of love to Work Choices and that, whatever they pretend, however they position, they are now and always will be the party of Work Choices and industrial relations extremism. Australian working families who voted last November rejected them because they did not want it. They do not want it now and they will not want it in the future.

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