Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to eight employees who each lost their job yesterday at Melbourne company Triangle Cables. Isn’t it the case that their jobs were advertised before your extreme industrial laws came into effect? Isn’t it the case that these eight employees sacked yesterday are just among the first of millions of Australian employees whose job security you have torn up?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not have any direct information on this matter to give the detailed answer sought by the Leader of the Opposition. But the ordinary principles of commonsense tell me that in the second part of his question he lapsed into the rhetoric that has been so redolent of the Labor Party’s approach to this matter. The truth is that the changes that came in on Monday are going to lead to more jobs in the Australian community, not fewer.