Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

No, I cannot express enough, Member for Moreton—give me another 20 minutes and I will be able to get close. The reality is that this is a government that is looking only at the time horizon of the next federal election. This is a government with no consideration for the future. We have a Prime Minister who will wring her hands and say how concerned she is about the jobs of Australian workers and, in particular, she will say how concerned she is about the jobs of Australian manufacturing workers. Where is the concern for the tens of thousands of people in Australia's tourism industry who have lost their jobs? Where is the concern for the tens of thousands of Australians in the retail sector who have lost their jobs? Where is the concern for the tens of thousands of Australians who are employed in the services sector who have lost their jobs? We never hear them mentioned. We do not hear the Treasurer talk about them.

Sure, we hear the Treasurer and the Prime Minister talk about the car industry. And why is that? The answer is very obvious. It is because the car industry is heavily unionised, and those opposite rely on the patronage of the union movement to get them into office. It is the unions that feed them and that is why, when the unions say, 'Jump,' they say, 'How high?' But you know what? The workers in the tourism industry and the retail industry, those people who have casual jobs, are not unionised. They are struggling to make ends meet and they do not even get a look in. When those opposite actually start to give a damn about those workers in the service sector that do the jobs and generate the wealth for the majority for the Australian economy, then they will be concerned.

I only have a short period of time to touch on the claim that it is the coalition trying to cut the wages for these workers. How often do we hear talk about penalty rates?

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