Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and the Minister for Social Inclusion. Is the minister aware of support for the reintroduction of Australian workplace agreements?

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

I thank the member for Parramatta for her question. Today has truly been an important day in the workplace relations history of this country. Today this parliament passed Labor’s transition to Forward with Fairness bill. This is the beginning of getting rid of Work Choices. This is taking handfuls of dirt and throwing it in the grave of Work Choices because we want to bury it.

From the coming into operation of Labor’s new laws, there will not be a working Australian who will have to fear that they will walk into a workplace only to be confronted with an Australian workplace agreement which strips away basic pay and conditions for no proper compensation. That was the essence of Work Choices: Australian workplace agreements and the ability to strip the safety net away. When Labor’s fair, balanced and flexible system is in full operation on 1 January 2010, there will be no new statutory individual employment agreements of any nature. There will be a safety net on which working Australians can stand and, standing on that safety net, they will be able to bargain with their employer, either collectively or for a common-law contract, but a common-law contract that always must give them the safety net.

Working Australians are entitled to know whether this reprieve from Australian workplace agreements and Work Choices is enduring or whether it is the policy of the Liberal Party that, should they ever resume government, they will reintroduce Australian workplace agreements and Work Choices. This is the simple question that they have always refused to answer. In their rhetoric about not supporting whilst not opposing Labor’s legislation, they never answered that simple question. What do they stand for? If re-elected to government, do they stand for the re-introduction of Work Choices and Australian workplace agreements? Or have they finally heard the voice of the Australian people, and are they truly going to respect it, as the Leader of the Opposition suggested yesterday?

We need to know the answer to this question, because working Australians are entitled to know it, and working Australians know that the Liberal Party is a political party with a track record of deceit on workplace relations—a track record of going to an election and deceiving working Australians about their intention after the election. That is what they did in 2004. Australians are entitled to know.

Today we got the answer. Indeed, we got 62 answers from those who sit opposite. Today, when asked to vote whether or not they were planning to introduce new statutory individual employment agreements, they revealed their hand. We put to them a very simple proposition: would you agree with us that never again will we see in this country the reintroduction of individual statutory employment agreements? Will you agree with us to never again reintroduce Australian workplace agreements? Will you agree with us to never again reintroduce Work Choices? And they voted no. We now have the Liberal Party’s policy revealed. Should they ever become the government again, they will reintroduce Australian workplace agreements, they will reintroduce Work Choices. We flushed them out. We know they were running up and down the corridors, trying to work out how they were going to vote; we know that they played all sorts of procedural tricks in this parliament to give them the maximum amount of time to work out how they were going to vote, but ultimately they voted for the reintroduction of Work Choices. That is all any Australian will ever need to know about the values of the Leader of the Opposition and the party he leads. Everything working Australians need to know about the Liberal Party has been revealed today.

Today the Liberal Party had the opportunity to put their signature on the death certificate of Work Choices and, instead of doing that, they sought to revive it. Australians will judge them on that.