Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I am asked, and I hear all of this from the other side, about what the government should have done and when; let us just reflect on their view of what the government's role in similar circumstances would be. This is what the Leader of the Opposition on a previous occasion has said in relation to government involvement in industrial disputes:

The Government must be highly selective about the cases where it seeks to intervene. In general, the parties to an industrial dispute should make their own arrangements … without any government—

assistance. In other words, these hypocrites who sit opposite are trying to make the issue of how we should have got involved when we did, yet they themselves do not believe in government involvement. If there is any doubt about that, I remind people what the architect of Work Choices had to say a week ago. This is what Peter Reith had to say:

A lot of people say there’s a dispute so let’s get the government to fix it. Quite frankly that is old thinking … It’s an idea that we—

meaning the Liberal Party—

abandoned for a very good reason … when it comes to a dispute the government is not the solution …

That is the thinking of those on the other side. So do not come here, with your cant and hypocrisy, saying where the government should have intervened earlier; look at your own form. If you want to understand where this dispute could have ended up, look no further than what happened in the Patrick dispute, where, rather than try to get a resolution, you fanned its continuation. You had a midnight cabinet meeting to pass legislation that legitimised the sacking of an entire workforce and its replacement by a scab workforce. That is your view of industrial relations; it is not ours.

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