Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Murray, the member for Stirling and others across the divide know that they failed to address these problems. We, of course, are now responding to them. Labor will always concern itself with the creation and protection of jobs. We concern ourselves with those issues because we, unlike those opposite, relate to workers, empathise with workers’ needs and do not see them as mere units of labour. Those opposite may talk about jobs all they like but in the end all we have to do is go to Work Choices to see exactly how the previous government considered it should relate to working people.

We are very interested in seeing, notwithstanding the comments of the Leader of the Opposition yesterday in a media conference, what the opposition do in relation to the Fair Work Bill in the Senate. We will see whether Work Choices is dead or not. We do know that many members opposite have been defending Work Choices throughout this year. They have defended it because they have in the end an ideological predisposition to supporting Work Choices.

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