Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

One thing this legislation does is make enterprise agreements and bargaining in enterprise agreements simpler and faster than at the moment. Why does that cause increased pay for people? The average weekly earnings for people on enterprise agreements is $1,331 and for those on awards it is $789. So the more people we can get covered by enterprise agreements, the more that they will get paid. That used to be your position. The member for Watson said:

Bargaining is much harder at the moment and taking much longer than it should. Policies that get bargaining moving again are going to be really important …

I don't think anyone says that every rule that is there at the moment should remain unchanged. What they now say with respect to bargaining is that every rule that does exist at the moment should remain unchanged. They totally reversed their position because they want to avoid what they call collateral damage. There's one piece of collateral damage that they are trying to avoid and that's with respect to the Leader of the Opposition. (Time expired)

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