Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Minister for Small and Family Business, the Workplace and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

and find a constructive solution. On Monday, this lockout will end after near seven months.

I'm asked if there are any alternatives. Just last night, we found out all about Labor's secret plan, the plan that has been constructed by Sally McManus and the ACTU, in which the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Gorton are going to rip up their own Fair Work Act, the result of their legislation drafted between 2007 and implemented in mid-2009, which they have stood behind and all said magnificently proud things of. Why? Because, as the member for Gorton said this morning, the system's broken. The nuclear factor, which is what Sally McManus refers to, is terminating agreements. In the last 12 months, three per cent of the agreements terminated have been contested. Ninety-seven per cent have been done by mutual consent.

What does this broken system look like? This week Olivia, a year 10 student, and her mother took action in the commission against the Yoghurt Factory and their enterprise agreement. They beat the company and had it contested and dismissed. Why? Because the conditions in that had come to a stage where they needed to be updated. A year 10 student and her mother used the system as it was designed.

This system is not broken. It is being manipulated by the ACTU and the left of the Labor Party, as they dictate to the member for Gorton and the Leader of the Opposition, who swallow it hook, line and sinker. Why? Because they are interested in union power in the workplace—nothing more and nothing less. What will be the result? The decimation of this economy and a loss of jobs. Again, there is not one policy that will create one job—only policies that decimate the economy. If you put this mob in charge, you will pay the price.

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