Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations: will the minister update the House on the recycling of promotional materials relating to government policies?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his question and I know of his concern for fairness and balance in Australian workplaces. The Rudd Labor government is determined to get rid of the scourge of Work Choices and the scourge of Work Choices propaganda. The former government waged a war with Work Choices propaganda; we are now trying to wage a war on that propaganda and get rid of it. On Monday I reported to the House that the Prime Minister and I had arranged for the pulping of 436,000 Work Choices booklets. Yesterday, I reported to the House that we were getting rid of 100,000 Work Choices mousepads. Yesterday in this parliament I was convinced that I was winning the war against Work Choices propaganda, but it is with a heavy heart I am forced to report to the House: there is more. I am sorry about it, but there is more.

There are 102,341 plastic folders—unfortunately, more than 100,000 of them.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What are you going to do with them?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a good question that the Manager of Government Business asks: we are going to have to get rid of them. There are 77,893 pens. There are 5,684 postcards and—

Government Members:

Postcards!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Postcards—just in case anybody ever wanted one! There is an unknown number of fridge magnets. I am alert and I am alarmed, I would have to say! You cannot turn a corner in Canberra without Work Choices propaganda cascading on top of you. It is just remarkable.

We are going to continue the war against Work Choices propaganda. I do concede that for some people this propaganda could come in handy. I can imagine that when the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition produced their ‘Work Choices is dead’ statement they did it at a computer with a Work Choices mousepad, they signed it with a Work Choices pen, they filed it in a Work Choices folder and then they had a drink out of a Work Choices fridge. I understand that this propaganda can come in handy to some—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One with a fridge magnet on it—a Work Choices fridge. You would not want to doubt their bona fides, would you, as they sit in their office, cocooned in with their Work Choices propaganda, remembering the good old days when they had the political honesty to walk to a dispatch box and defend Work Choices? Now of course they still believe in Work Choices, but they do not have that political honesty anymore. The Work Choices propaganda is the propaganda of the Liberal Party, paid for unwillingly by Australian taxpayers, by a government that believed in Work Choices. This is a Liberal Party that still believe in Work Choices. If they want some things to remind them of the good old days, they can just ring my office. We have got a lot of them waiting for you!