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

I thank the member for Cunningham for her question. I know that she is interested in fairness and balance in Australian workplaces. I am asked about the progress of the government’s substantive workplace relations changes. Of course, the government have already delivered our transition act, which stopped the making of new Australian workplace agreements. In relation to the substantive legislation, we are doing the thing the Howard government refused to do—that is, we are consulting on the details to make sure that the legislation is right, not a complex mess. Not only are we going to be delivering the policies we promised the Australian people; we want to make sure that the legislation is in an appropriate form and not the sort of complex mess that caused confusion amongst employers and employees.

Of course, apart from bringing industrial relations extremism to this country, what we know came with the Howard government’s Work Choices changes was an avalanche—a blizzard—of advertising material. Just yesterday in the Senate Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Workplace Relations estimates hearing, we were told that the previous government spent a staggering $137 million on promoting Work Choices—$137 million ripped out of the purses and wallets of hardworking Australians to featherbed a desperate government and to try and prosecute its political agenda with money that ought to have come from the Liberal Party. This staggering total included $44 million on the first Work Choices advertising campaign, $58 million on the second Work Choices advertising campaign and $35 million on the employer adviser program.

I am asked: what would be the effect of a return to the Howard government’s workplace relations policies? Given that blizzard of advertising, it pays to recheck some of the things that were said in the Work Choices advertising by members opposite when they were in government. I would specifically seek to remind the House of the example of Billy. We used to hear a lot about Billy last year. Billy was a case study in the Work Choices propaganda. Billy was a minimum wage worker who lost all of his protected award conditions for not one cent of compensation: overtime, gone; penalty rates, gone; annual leave loading, gone—all of his award conditions without one cent of compensation. Of course, members opposite defended as fair and reasonable that a minimum wage worker should lose all of those award conditions for not one cent of compensation.

It amazes me, given their defence of that policy, why it never occurred to them in government: how did Billy pay for his petrol? How did Billy pay for his mortgage? How did Billy pay for his—

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