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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. The question that is before this parliament now is whether members of the Liberal and National parties will follow the foolish direction of the member for Sturt and engage in these rip-offs of kids in their electorates—that is the question. I understand that the Leader of the Opposition is a busy man and I understand that he has probably not taken personal carriage of this matter, but it is time for him to do so because he cannot, as Leader of the Opposition, defend a $1 billion black hole in the budget and he cannot defend ripping scholarship money out of the hands of 150,000 students around the country.

At the same time, the Leader of the Opposition may want to direct his attentions to what the Liberal and National parties are doing to destroy the prospect in this country of a national workplace relations system, a reform that the former Prime Minister, John Howard, set as an ideal for a long period of time. Why? Because the former Prime Minister, John Howard, was right that a national system would be better for small business. But yesterday in this parliament the Liberal and National parties came in here to smash and destroy the prospects of a national workplace relations system, presumably because they want to see small business tied up in red tape.

The Leader of the Opposition and the Liberal and National parties need to explain this conduct—a $1 billion black hole; country kids disadvantaged; small business tied up in red tape. It is time the Leader of the Opposition took personal carriage of these matters, or is the truth that the Leader of the Opposition already has personal carriage of these matters and, given his weakness and his struggle with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, he needs to find a few bones for the hard right of his party, like making sure they vote against a fair workplace relations system and vote to bring back the Work Choices rip-offs? Is that what it is all about? It may well be, but Australian small businesses and country students should not pay the price of the Liberal leader’s weakness. The Leader of the Opposition should take personal charge of this and fix it. He will be judged by his actions over the coming few days.

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