Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

First rule of holes: stop digging. Already this morning, start of the day, early comments in the media conference, these are the comments that are prepared, just like the shadow Treasurer's question today—prepared with information that is wrong on the face of documents tabled in this parliament, wrong on the face of documents that are publicly available. They're not the only scare campaigns. We were in the debate for a suspension only this morning again being told that we needed to bring the bill back in because they were opposed to sector-wide and industry-wide bargaining. The bill doesn't have sector-wide and industry-wide bargaining. It has multi-employer bargaining where either the employers or their workforce have chosen and voted that they want to be a part of it. But we also had in the debate—this is one of my favourites, because I think someone is in competition with Senator Cash—the Nationals MP for Mallee:

The Albanese government is willing to risk burning down the Australian economy with this industry-wide bargaining, and after that—

This hits my arts portfolio part—

the unions will rule over the ashes.

No melodrama over there! no exaggeration! Deal with the facts. We need to get wages moving. (Time expired)

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