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

Thank you very much to the member for Braddon for his question, thank you very much to the Speaker for the call and thank you to the shadow minister for education for interjecting ‘mass distraction’. That is obviously what he thinks the Leader of the Opposition is, because this question refers to recent statements by the Leader of the Opposition.

As members of this House would recall, the heart of Work Choices was Australian workplace agreements that stripped away pay and conditions, and information from May 2006 gave us great evidence of just how bad those rip-offs that the Liberal Party endorsed were, with 63 per cent of AWAs ripping off penalty rates, endorsed by the Liberal Party; 51 per cent ripping off overtime loadings, endorsed by the Liberal Party; and 46 per cent ripping off public holiday pay, endorsed by the Liberal Party. AWAs are the rip-off at the heart of Work Choices.

The Leader of the Opposition from time to time has tried to say to the Australian people that he understands their concerns about these Liberal endorsed rip-offs. For example, the Leader of the Opposition on 25 May 2008 said, ‘Work Choices is dead. The people have spoken.’ Of course, on 26 November—

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