Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Adelaide is welcome to ask me a question if she could get one up in the tactics committee. Perhaps not after the last disaster! I am very pleased to report that support for the government's IR move to the sensible centre is coming from Labor figures who would not necessarily normally support the government. In February just passed, Paul Howes, Secretary of the Australian Workers Union, said:

Some will tell you that our industrial relations system is dragging us down.

And I won't be popular amongst my friends in the labour movement for saying this - but I agree.

And we agree with Paul Howes. But last week at the CEDA conference in Perth, a most unlikely source of support came for the coalition's position on Fair Work and on the Australian Building and Construction Commission, and that came from Martin Ferguson, the very well respected former cabinet minister in the last Gillard and Rudd governments—one of the lions of the labour movement. He said at the CEDA conference, 'The ABCC is a mechanism that holds both sides to account and which can help deliver projects on time and on budget.' He also said: 'The government has tabled some changes to the FWA to bring into effect their pre-election policy commitments. While the changes are a step in the right direction they are really quite modest.'

So we have support from Martin Ferguson, the better side of the gene pool of the Ferguson brothers in this place. But what did Brendan O'Connor, the shadow minister for workplace relations, instantly say? He told Sky News that he was very disappointed that Mr Ferguson had joined the other side. Following up his remarks about Qantas being owned by the Australian taxpayer, his response was to attack Martin Ferguson, a lion of the Labor Party. But Joel Fitzgibbon rode in to defend Martin Ferguson. He said that Martin had been sharing these views publicly and privately for a very long time.

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