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

Those opposite will know that that is exactly the legislation which was before the House at the time. The trickiness suggested by those opposite lies in the Leader of the Opposition conflating that piece of legislation with the Fair Work Bill, which came in later. That is what the Leader of the Opposition has done deliberately in this House. He puts himself up as a straight talker, but, when you dig beneath what he says, he had one position on emissions trading last year but has a new position this year, and he had one position on a Commonwealth takeover of hospitals a few years ago but has a different and reverse position now. What the Leader of the Opposition, the straight talker from central casting, now seeks to do is to conflate the debate in the House at the time on the transitional legislation which the industrial relations minister had before the House at the time and the Fair Work Bill, which was considered later.

The legislation to which the honourable member refers was the transitional legislation which ensured that every worker on an AWA would have the option of remaining on their existing AWA arrangements. We also introduced a no disadvantage test for new arrangements. Together, these provisions ensured that no worker would be made worse off as a result of the transitional arrangements. That was the debate at the time, and the Leader of the Opposition would know that full well. Therefore, that is the position we put to the Australian public at the time.

Secondly, the honourable member may also be interested in what we have said in relation to the Fair Work Act and the commitments we gave to the Australian people at the time. What we said when we introduced these changes to our industrial laws, Forward with Fairness, was as follows:

Labor will get the balance right by introducing a fairer and more flexible industrial relations system with sensible transitional arrangements from Mr Howard’s Work Choices laws.

That is what we did. The honourable member may also be seeking to refer to the impact of awards. I am not sure whether that is within the scope of his question, but can I just say to the honourable member that our position in that respect is absolutely clear-cut and consistent with the past as well.

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