Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this amendment to the Fair Work Act. I thought I would put it in context, because we need to remember a little bit of history here. I take you back to the 2004 election, where the Howard government gained control of the Senate—one of the most Orwellian terms ever— and subsequently brought in something called Work Choices, as if people had choices. I take you back to what happened in workplaces when the Liberal-National coalition had unchecked power. What did they do? They rolled out individual contracts to undermine the Labor Party, to undermine the labour movement. I say that deliberately, because—it is no surprise; it is in the title of our party—we are the Australian Labor Party. I see us as the political wing of the labour movement. Heaven help us if we are not connected to the labour movement and all the wonderful work they do.

We saw what the Howard government did when their power was unchecked. We saw individual workers not being able to bargain collectively. From that we saw trade unions having to scramble to sign off on deals before their rights were taken away, and then we had the transition to fair workplaces under the Fair Work Act under the Labor government. People need to remember that history and see a lot of these deals in that context.

See this speech in context