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

I thank the member for Robertson for that question. I know she has a deep concern about the impact of Work Choices on working families in her electorate. During the last few sitting weeks, we have revealed a number of statistics that, to coin a phrase, members of parliament need to ‘really understand’. One of the statistics that members of parliament need to really understand is the dimension of waste of taxpayers’ money that was engaged in by the former government on Work Choices propaganda: $121 million, which we know, and as has been revealed in this parliament, caused a plague of mousepads, leftover pens, fridge magnets, pamphlets and all sorts of other paraphernalia. The members over there might think that that is moderately humorous, but let us remember that money was ripped out of the purses and wallets of hardworking Australians in order to pay for the propaganda that the former government, the Liberal Party, engaged in in the run-up to the election. A second statistic that members of the House need to really understand relates to the dimension of rip-off of working Australians by Work Choices. I have had the opportunity in this parliament over the last few weeks to confirm that 89 per cent of AWAs sampled removed at least one protected award condition, 83 per cent excluded two or more and 52 per cent excluded six or more. On the question of rip-off—

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