Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a disappointment we have had here this morning! At the first chance the member for Wakefield has to come into this new parliament and put up a motion that tries to tackle the problems that we have in this economy with our growing debt what does he resort to? It is the old scare campaign, the old 'create the bogeyman' and the old, 'They're taking away our penalty rates.' What an embarrassment and disappointment it must be to the people who elected the member for Wakefield.

Let's get something very clear: there is absolutely no proposal coming from anyone on this side that the penalty rates of nurses, police, ambulance or emergency workers should be touched one iota. It is simply another scare campaign. Why is there a scare campaign? It is to try to get people to vote Labor and also to get them to cough up their union membership fees. It is to take their union membership fees and have that bogeyman and scare campaign out there.

It was very interesting during this debate on penalty rates that there was not a single word from anyone in the Labor Party about the rip-off of workers by the shop and distributive workers' union. Yes, $300 million was ripped off. Union officials signed off to rip $300 million off those workers. That is what the Fair Work Commission found. Those opposite should be embarrassed about that. They should come in here and apologise to all those workers from Coles and Woolworths for the $300 million—

Mr Champion interjecting—

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