Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Hansard source

I did not interrupt you; if you listen you might form a different view. That one key misrepresentation has become a lightning rod. Everyone knows, with three minutes of investigation, that the signing of the infrastructure facilitation agreement at the start of a project in no way changes the need for labour market testing when the project starts. Why would you have labour market testing two years before the project starts? You do not even know what labour is necessary at that stage.

The member for Melbourne perpetuated this myth with his first comments when he stood up, and that is what irritates me. This debate has been going on for months and months and months and these misrepresentations have been going on, and you have not bothered once to come and get some clarity. I would have given you any amount of contact with the department, whatever you wanted. You have taken the view of one person with a particular reputation in this area from an Adelaide university and that is the basis of your argument.

We all have responsibilities in this place, and one is to do the best job we can to inform ourselves before we jump to our feet—not to come in and, with weasel words, continue to raise fabricated concerns that have been perpetuated by $10 million to $12 million worth of advertising by the union movement. I say to the member for Melbourne: if we want to have a reasoned debate, and I agree that is very much the case, then we need to be as informed as possible and, if we have queries, take the opportunity to walk down the corridor and say, 'I'd like a meeting.' And you will get it every time. You will get it. This is such an important issue that I talk to anyone and everyone to try and inform people of the detail.

Finally, we have not changed our agreement with the Labor Party. Again, this is sleight of hand or maybe a misunderstanding. The fact of the matter is that not one word, not one commitment, not one element of the agreement, the MOU or the side letter has been changed—none of it. It is as it was signed off on in June. None of it has changed. What we have done is provided an assurance to the Labor Party that what is already in the agreement will continue to be in the agreement, that it will not be changed by government fiat some years down the track. If it is to be changed, it will go as a regulation before the parliament and it will then be allowed or disallowed by the parliament. That is an assurance that what we have agreed, the worker protections that are in there, are satisfactory and there is no reason for people to fear for their jobs or their salary levels, or to fear that cheap labour will come in. As I said to you earlier, Member for Bandt, nothing has changed, absolutely nothing. But in an act of good faith, with goodwill on both sides, we have sought to provide the assurances that the Labor Party needed—that what is in the agreement, which they accept, is not to be changed but is binding on our government or any government, for that matter, unless there are changes put to the chambers as regulation for approval or disapproval.

Again, even if we see the passage of this bill today, my offer to the member remains: my door is open if you want to come and see me.

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