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

I want to thank the member for Paterson for the question—someone who, in particular, in her whole time here, has been calling on this parliament to close the labour hire loophole that effects so many of the miners in her electorate.

When we were announcing the closing loopholes legislation, a few months ago, an ad campaign started. I said right from the start that the ad campaign was incorrect and that the legislation was never going to do what the ads were claiming—that somehow you'd lose the capacity to pay someone who has a lot of experience a different rate to that for someone who was brand new. Now that the legislation is here, I'm pleased to tell the parliament that they've stopped that ad of misinformation. They've now replaced it with two ads with different forms of misinformation. I just want to explain one of those too. It's an ad authorised by the National Farmers Federation. I've been dealing with the National Farmers Federation for a long time, right back to when I was agriculture minister. As an organisation, they often provide very good advice on policy, but they've never been that good when it comes to the rights of workers, historically. They just haven't been.

See this speech in context