Mike Symon (Deakin, 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, the Minister for Social Inclusion and the Deputy Prime Minister. Will the Deputy Prime Minister advise the House of progress in implementing its Forward with Fairness policy agenda? Are there any potential barriers to the timely delivery of the workplace relations system that Australians voted for less than 10 months ago?

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

I thank the member for his question and for interest in fairness at work. As I have just advised the House, we are now in the closing stages of a consultative process which has engaged business—both big and small—and trade unions in consulting on the details of implementation of the government’s Forward with Fairness plans, as taken to the Australian people at the last election.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Julie Bishop interjecting

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

Of course, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition is calling out because she does not believe in telling Australians the truth when you go to elections on workplace relations policies. But this is the government that did tell Australians the truth. We took our Forward with Fairness plan to the last election. We have been consulting on its implementation and details. We are about to go through an intensive process through the committee on industrial legislation, where industrial experts will look at the legislation in draft over a 10-day period in order to give their advice on its improvement on the details of its implementation, and then the legislation will be in this parliament.

I am asked about obstacles to the implementation of this legislation. I regret to advise the House that there is a clear obstacle, and that is the present policy of the Liberal Party in responding to the government’s legislation. We have been advised by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that the Liberal Party’s test as to whether the legislation will be supported by the Liberal Party or opposed by the Liberal Party is whether or not it reintroduces Australian workplace agreements. That is the Liberal Party’s test for the government’s legislation which implements the policy we were elected on: whether that legislation has grafted onto it the heart of the Work Choices policy that the Australian people rejected at the last election. So presumably, unless the Liberal Party sees the heart of Work Choices—the policy rejected by the Australian people—grafted into the government’s legislation, it will deny the Australian people what they want, which is an end to the remainder of Work Choices. Presumably, the Liberal Party is going to thwart the Australian people’s desire for the policy that they voted for and instead continue the hated Work Choices legislation.

A big decision is coming for the new Leader of the Opposition, and he has got only two choices. He can back in his deputy leader, stand by Work Choices and spit in the face of the Australian people, or he can dump the position of his deputy leader and acknowledge that the Australian people voted for Forward with Fairness and Forward with Fairness is what the Australian people should have. It is a big test for the Leader of the Opposition. He says he is concerned about Australians. He wants us to believe him to be a compassionate man. He supported rip-offs of Australian working families when they were in government. What we are waiting to see is whether he is going to support those rip-offs in opposition. I am not heartened, having looked at what the Leader of the Opposition has had to say in other circumstances about workplace relations. He said the following:

You have to free the market to do its work and let the cost of setting the clearing price—be it for labour, shares, home units or loaves of bread—be as low as possible—

Government Member:

Aha!

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

Exactly. He continued:

and by that I mean with as few transaction costs as possible.

Transaction costs like a minimum wage, transaction costs like an awards system, transaction costs like industrial laws that are fair, transaction costs like a fair bargaining system and transaction costs like unfair dismissals. He wants Australian working people to be treated as if they are loaves of bread.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order that goes to relevance. We know that the Deputy Prime Minister was a transaction cost for the leadership of the member for Griffith. We know that.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat and I warn him. That was not a point of order.

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

Isn’t it interesting? The man who defended every rip-off in this parliament is up to defend Work Choices. For every rip-off of every family, everybody who ever lost a cent—you were there at this dispatch box defending it. But the choice remains for the Leader of the Opposition: he dump his deputy, vote for what the Australian people voted for, or come clean on his plans to take Work Choices further and to make sure Australian working people are treated as if they are chattels; because that is clearly what he has said in the past.