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

I thank the member for Deakin for his question and note his deep interest and active involvement in putting together the government’s Fair Work Bill. The Fair Work Bill brings to a culmination what the Australian Labor Party promised the Australian people in the lead-up to the 2007 election. We promised them an end to Work Choices. We promised them a fair, flexible and balanced workplace relations system.

We announced our policy Forward with Fairness in April 2007. We campaigned for it every day in the lead-up to the 2007 election, and the Australian people endorsed it. Every day since, we have worked in a consultative way with employers, with unions, with those interested in delivering a fair, flexible and balanced workplace relations system. We have worked with a business advisory group, a small business working group, a workers advisory group, the National Workplace Relations Consultative Council and the Committee on Industrial Legislation—meeting for an unprecedented number of days, working with the legislation. We introduced it into the House of Representatives last November and it has been to an extensive Senate committee inquiry. We did not sneak up on anybody with this bill. Everybody knew that this bill would be in the Senate for decision this week.

What did the Leader of the Opposition say when this bill came into the parliament? He said:

We—

the coalition—

accept that WorkChoices is dead. The Australian people have spoken.

They were the words of the Leader of the Opposition last November. They were driven by opportunism, no doubt, but Australian people listening to those words would have thought that the coalition was going to get out of the way and allow Work Choices to be brought to an end, to kill Work Choices and have a fair and flexible system introduced. And it seemed that that might happen—that was, until the member for Higgins appeared on the Today show last week and said:

It—

the government—

has to reconsider its proposals in relation to industrial relations.

So the Liberal Party went into its party room today, and the people of Australia waited. Who was going to determine the Liberal Party’s position on Work Choices? Was it the Leader of the Opposition or the member for Higgins?

See this speech in context