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

I thank the member for Cunningham for her question, as we draw to the end of another sitting fortnight in the federal parliament—and an interesting sitting fortnight it has been. It started with the memoirs of the member for Higgins, was inclusive of a change of leadership with a new Leader of the Opposition, encompassed a gaffe filled start by the new shadow Treasurer, and today gave us, most remarkably, the spectre of an opposition gagging its own suspension motion and appointing the member for O’Connor to be in charge of Liberal Party tactics in this place—a remarkable week in Australian politics.

I am asked, at the end of this remarkable fortnight in Australian politics, where we have seen these events emerge, about progress in the government’s agenda on workplace relations and getting rid of Work Choices. Can I remind the House that the government has already delivered the end of Australian workplace agreements through its transition act and before the end of the year we will introduce into this parliament the rest of the government’s Forward with Fairness agenda. That agenda will introduce fairness and balance back into Australian workplaces—a safety net that people can rely on, a fair bargaining system, a new industrial umpire and a fair system for unfair dismissals. We know the history of Work Choices and Australian workplace agreements is one of rip-offs. We know from the data that 63 per cent of Australian workplace agreements cut penalty rates, 52 per cent cut shift loadings and 51 per cent cut overtime.

I am asked by the member for Cunningham about progress on analysing the impact of Work Choices on working families. At the end of this sitting fortnight I regret to inform the House that a new analysis is not available. I had hoped that with the publication of the member for Higgins’s memoirs we would have the inside story of Work Choices and we would have access, finally, to the inside information about how much the Howard government knew about how bad Work Choices was. I even went to the trouble of getting a discounted copy of the member for Higgins’s book out of the remainders bin at a bookshop. It cost me slightly over $30—discounted from $55. The bookshop proprietor said to me, ‘If you picked out one that was signed I’d give you 10 bucks to take it out of the shop!’ But the one I picked out of the bin was not signed so I actually had to part with $30 for it, but not $55. Having parted with the money to help the member for Higgins’s book sales, to help him with his royalties—I am a generous woman—I looked—

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