Kym Richardson (Kingston, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Given the existence of the political strategy manual produced by the ACTU, I am very concerned, Minister. Are the claims in this dirty tricks manual correct? What is the government’s response?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Kingston for his question. I know that the unemployment rate in Kingston in 1996 was 11.6 per cent. It has come down to 6.8 per cent. It is still too high, but it has come down by nearly five percentage points, and I think that is good for the people of Kingston.

I am aware of this extensive, comprehensive, dirty tricks manual. I am also aware that the Leader of the Opposition, in the Australian on 10 February this year said:

·              The parliamentary party determines the alternative policy for the next election, not the ACTU.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition said, on 22 April:

The ACTU doesn’t tell Labor what to do ... this is not about the ACTU and what they want.

I thought very carefully about those words, ‘The ACTU doesn’t tell Labor what to do.’ I had a look at a few of the speeches of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and I compared them to what is in the ACTU’s dirty tricks manual, and it was very interesting. Example No. 1 comes from the dirty tricks manual, 28 April:

An AWA can be a condition of the job or the condition of a promotion.

Gillard:

You sign or you don’t get the job. You sign or you don’t get the promotion.

Example No. 2, from the ACTU manual—

Opposition Members:

Ha, ha!

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don’t laugh too hard. ACTU manual example No. 2:

If you work in a company with fewer than 100 employees, you can be sacked and your employer doesn’t have to give you a reason.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition said on 2TM:

They go to work, particularly in businesses of less than 100 people, not knowing if they are going to be dismissed that day because they can be dismissed for any reason.

Example No. 3:

These laws affect workers’ take-home pay. They affect their conditions and job security.

Gillard—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will refer to the deputy leader by her title.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry; the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said:

Laws have cut the take-home pay, conditions and job security of working Australians.

Example No. 4—the ACTU political manual says:

The resource boom has been driving our economy.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition says:

What’s driving economic growth in this country is the resources boom.

Example No. 5 is about the ABCC, the watchdog that has helped to deliver the lowest ever level of industrial disputation on construction sites. The ACTU manual says:

The ABCC is treating the union representatives as worse than terrorists.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition says:

The ABCC is interrogating people as if they were terrorists.

This document and the words of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition have an uncanny similarity. It was Paul Keating, wasn’t it, who said that the Labor Party does not get out of bed unless a focus group tells them which side to get out of? This is the Labor Party way. The trade union movement’s manual says it all. Every word uttered by a whole lot of members—which we will remind members of over the next few weeks—comes out of this manual. Do you know what? When it comes down to it, the Leader of the Opposition is a patsy for the union bosses. He is wholly beholden to the union bosses. The union bosses are only interested in their power. They have no interest in the workers of Australia.