Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

We have learned not to take uncritically assertions of fact from the opposition. The fact is that the Leader of the Opposition, again and again, stated that he would support the decision of the Fair Work Commission. He gave them the reference to look at penalty rates. When he did that, do we think that the Leader of the Opposition imagined that the Fair Work Commission was going to increase Sunday penalty rates? Was that his plan?

Mr Champion interjecting—

The honourable member for Wakefield says no. He obviously must have felt they would stay exactly the same. What is the point of asking for a review if penalty rates are going to be unchanged? Then, just before the 2013 election, the same Leader of the Opposition, then the Minister for Workplace Relations, promised to give $300,000 to COSBOA, the small business peak body, to argue their case in the Fair Work Commission. Did he imagine that they were going to go in there and say, 'Our members want to pay higher penalty rates'? I do not think so. Did he think they were going to bother to go there and say they should be unchanged? He knew what COSBOA was going to say and he was going to pay them to say it. The hypocrisy of this Leader of the Opposition strains the boundaries of traditional political practice. He has moved into the post-truth environment with a vengeance.

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

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