Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I notice that those opposite are beginning to jeer. Can I say this to those opposite: when you have softening employment and increasing unemployment around the world and therefore have softening employment and increasing unemployment prospectively in Australia, working families dealing with the reality of the workplace would not want the protections available to them under Work Choices, because Work Choices stripped away basic protections in the workplace. Those opposite received such a caning at the last election because working families believed, rightly, that the balance had been got wrong. What we know from the interjections of those opposite is that they remain the party of Work Choices. In their heart of hearts and their mind of minds, they still believe in Work Choices, despite political protestations to the contrary. Therefore, in the future, if they were to return to the treasury bench, Work Choices would be back.

I say this to those opposite: if working families concerned about employment in the future were given the opportunity of dealing with Work Choices on the one hand or a fair and balanced industrial relations system on the other, they would vote for a fair and balanced industrial relations system. They did at the last election. We are delivering on that for the future. It is the right thing for working families, who are facing real challenges ahead, and we need to make sure that they have every protection possible.

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