Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion. Would the Deputy Prime Minister outline how the government’s Fair Work Bill has got the balance right in providing protection for Australian workers while providing flexibility for small business? Are there any policy proposals that strip away longstanding employee rights?

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

I thank the member for Bonner for her question and know that she is very concerned to ensure that working people in her electorate have fairness at work and that the employers in her electorate have all the flexibility they need to get on with their businesses. In the lead-up to the 2007 election the Labor Party published its workplace relations policies, and in the election it received a clear mandate from the Australian people for those policies. I remind the House that our election policy clearly stated:

A Rudd Labor Government will introduce a simple system for determining who can bring an unfair dismissal claim based on three circumstances:

• an employee who is employed by an employer who employs 15 or more employees must have been employed for 6 months;
• an employee who is employed by an employer who employs fewer than 15 employees must have been employed for 12 months …

That is on page 19 of Forward with Fairness, our policy implementation plan published in August 2007. The fact that this policy was well known to the Australian community and was campaigned on by the Labor Party was acknowledged by none other than the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition on 13 December last year said—this was recorded in the Australian newspaper and not denied by the Leader of the Opposition—in his words, not mine:

… Labor took a proposal to change the unfair dismissal laws to the election and won. So we must respect that.

In the Fair Work Bill debate that is unfolding in the Senate, we ask of the Liberal Party no more and no less than this: to back the words of their leader—apparently a test too hard for them. We are asking them for no more and no less than this: to back the words of their leader. Of course, their leader has also said Work Choices is dead, but now we see in the Senate the Liberal Party doing everything they can to maintain the Work Choices rip-offs.

Yesterday in question time I unveiled a new rip-off from the Liberal Party. When in government they ripped redundancy entitlements off working people and in opposition they wanted to do the same trick. They wanted to rip redundancy entitlements off working people. The Liberal Party had put forward an amendment which would have changed the definition of ‘small business’ for the purpose of redundancy arrangements and would have ripped redundancy entitlements off working Australians. When I presented this to the House—

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: to stop the Deputy Prime Minister misleading the House again, I am very happy to table our amendment.

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

There is no point of order. I could ask if leave is granted for the tabling, but there is really no provision at this stage to seek it. Is leave granted?

Leave not granted.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on the point of order from the member for Stirling: is it in order, since he gave a personal explanation yesterday clearing up yesterday’s misleading of the House, for the Deputy Prime Minister to continue to mislead the House today?

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Crean interjecting

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

The member for Sturt will approach the dispatch box and withdraw.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was good natured, but I withdraw.

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

Whilst I do not really need the assistance of the Minister for Trade on this matter, he is quite correct in his interjections—there are plenty of precedents where these things have been allowed to go on. Whether that is satisfactory or not is another matter. It is something that could have been addressed in the last parliament, but it was not.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, this is more by way of indulgence and just to assist the House, if I may. Because of the background noise I could not hear the Deputy Prime Minister when she was describing what her policy said about right of entry.

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

Order! Before I call the Deputy Prime Minister, I think that there has been sufficient lenience given on these matters. As I have said before, people might believe that the rules of engagement for question time are uneven, but they are the same as they have been for many years.

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

I will explain this matter very clearly to the House. The amendment circulated by the Liberal Party sought to change the definition of small business in the Fair Work Bill. It supported changing the number from 15 to 25 and it purported to introduce that the number needs to be an effective full-time equivalent.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Show some integrity!

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

Then, and I will acknowledge this—I presume this is what the shadow minister is yelling about—for the purpose of redundancy it did acknowledge in the amendment that, even though it had changed the definition for unfair dismissal, for redundancy the number should be 15 but the definition of an effective full-time equivalent should be kept. That would have, if it had become the law of this country, changed small business redundancy entitlements so instead of being fewer than 15 on a head count it would have been fewer than 15 effective full-time equivalent employees—quite a different test—and it would have ripped redundancy entitlements off working Australians.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are deliberately misleading!

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

The shadow minister, who is yelling now, came to the dispatch box after question time and said—and I am going to quote him; I will be fair to him:

… that I and other members of the opposition were seeking to change the definition of a small business for the purposes of paying redundancy. That is completely and utterly false …

That is what he said at the end of question time after I exposed the Liberal Party redundancy revolt. Then he issued a press release that says, ‘Gillard misleads again’, claiming I had wilfully misled the House. Then at 10.16 pm last night, the Liberal Party—

Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Anthony Smith interjecting

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

The Deputy Prime Minister will resume her seat. The member for Casey is warned.

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

Then at 10.16 pm last night, the Liberal Party went into the Senate with a different set of amendments—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Pyne interjecting

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

The Deputy Prime Minister will resume her seat. The member for Sturt will withdraw.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I withdraw.

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

I repeat, at 10.16 pm last night, the Liberal Party went into the Senate with the very flaw that I brought to the House’s attention in question time corrected. There are two explanations for this course of conduct: (1) is that the shadow minister is completely incompetent—plausible; and (2) is that—and I think this is probably the correct one—the Liberal Party was involved in a deliberate plan to rip off redundancy entitlements from Australian workers and got caught.

This goes to prove that when it comes to workplace relations do not listen to what they say, watch what they do. The Leader of the Opposition is out there saying, ‘Work Choices is dead’, and then in the party room he is saying, ‘Let’s go in and fight to keep Work Choices alive’. The Leader of the Opposition is out there saying that they will respect Labor’s mandate on unfair dismissal, but the Liberal Party in this place are threatening to keep Work Choices alive on the basis of issues around unfair dismissal. The Liberal Party engaged in a redundancy rip-off. They denied it and then tried to fix it in the dead of night.

I say to the Australian people: always watch what they do, not what they say. And I say to senators as the rest of this debate unfolds—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I refer you to page 555 of the Practice, dealing with the fact that, although the standing orders are silent on the length of answers, you have a large discretion in fact to direct a minister who offends in the way the Deputy Prime Minister is—

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

There is no point of order. The member for Mackellar will resume her seat.

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

In conclusion, as the rest of this debate unfolds in the Senate, I say to every senator involved that every Liberal amendment has within it a rip-off they will not tell you about. The Liberal Party did it yesterday and we caught them. Every other amendment has a rip-off at its heart and that is why each and every one of them will be rejected by the government, because we are delivering on our promise to get rid of Work Choices, whilst the Liberal Party twist and turn and do everything they can to keep the rip-offs that they loved so much in government.