Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was a very passionate speech from the member for Wannon—clearly not passionate enough to go the full time allotted to him to make the speech, but passionate nonetheless. The Fair Work Amendment (Respect for Emergency Services Volunteers) Bill 2016 is another example of the Liberals turning their backs on the principles for political expediency, by seeking to restrict the matters about which parties can bargain. It is a bill that is breathtaking in its hypocrisy. This Liberal government is seeking to lecture others about workplace bargaining while at the same time they have been utterly incompetent at bargaining with their own workforce, the Australian Public Service. It is a bill that serves one useful purpose: to remind us that Australia needs to do better when it comes to collective bargaining in the public service.

This is just an example of the Liberals sacrificing their own principles for political expediency. If you want another example, we had a great one yesterday when the Prime Minister came into this chamber and tabled a bill that he himself did not believe in, which was a bill for a plebiscite for marriage equality. In that example there were so many Liberal principles that were sacrificed for political expediency. It is hard to know where to start, but a good place to start is the purported belief in civil rights and individual liberties, something that the Liberals claim is the core of liberalism, and yet despite claiming that to be the core of liberalism—which it really is—the Turnbull-Joyce government is working hard to do whatever it can to stop marriage equality, including by coming up with this plebiscite idea, which of course was invented by then Prime Minister Tony Abbott. The member for Cook has also claimed responsibility for that.

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