Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That was the longest six minutes of my life, having to wait for the member for Canning to finally finish up. He talks about the shearers strike in the 1890s and the political wing of the labour movement, but it was because that strike was broken viciously, nastily, by laws that were enacted by colonial parliaments that we have a Labor Party in this country, and that is why we are better off having a Labor Party in this country. That link is a good link. It is one of the reasons why The Financial Review in its front page today—at least in their iPad version—there is a headline that says 'World's highest low-paid workers'. That is a tremendous headline. I cannot tell you how proud I was when I read that headline. I think it is a good thing that our low-paid workers are the world's highest paid. You heard in the member for Kingston's speech about the very good report she has done on bullying, which this bill refers to and I will refer to a bit later on.

Mr Briggs interjecting—

It is a wonderful thing that the member for Mayo has to listen to my speech. I always enjoy making him listen to my speeches on industrial relations because I know he has a great interest in this area, having been one of the architects of Work Choices—an unsung backroom architect. He has one of the members protecting him—I cannot remember what that member is the member for—but he is one of the unsung architects of Work Choices. They do not like talking about it anymore.

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