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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to her comment in 2007 on the establishment of Fair Work Australia: 'Labor will remove all perceptions of bias.' How can the Prime Minister credibly claim there are no perceptions of bias about the Fair Work Australia investigation into the member for Dobell, when the investigation has taken longer than Watergate, the Korean War, the building of the Sydney Olympic Stadium and the duration of the Rudd government and she clearly has refused to answer questions today on this matter in this House?

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

Now we are into absurdity upon absurdity. Of course, Fair Work Australia is independent. Of course, it therefore would be quite wrong for me to reflect on the conduct of Fair Work Australia, because those comments could be read as trying to get Fair Work Australia to do something and therefore seeking to impinge on its independence. So I will not do what the Manager of Opposition Business is inviting me to do, because to do so would be quite wrong, to do so would be to impinge on the independence of Fair Work Australia, to do so would actually be to do what the Manager of Opposition Business the rest of the time says that the government should not do.

You are in the depths of a logical absurdity, because your muckraking is so without content that you twist and you turn and you scratch and you claw to try and see if you can find another little bit of mud to throw. Well, I will tell you this about Fair Work Australia. It is independent. It is unbiased. It is the umpire we created because the Howard government, in the embrace of Work Choices, had gutted the industrial umpire. It is there to make sure we have an appropriate balance between the interests of employees and employers. And it is of no surprise to me that the very existence of Fair Work Australia offends those opposite, because they are still so in love with Work Choices that anything that treats working people fairly is an offence in their eyes. That is actually, at base, what most of this is about. They love trashing the industrial umpire because they think at some point they might politically profit from it, because they want the industrial umpire gone and they want Work Choices back. They want working people ripped off. That is what they have always stood for. That is what they will always stand for.

This government is determined to get things done. We are delivering. On that side of this House, they might huff and puff and deal with matters like this, but this government is determined to get things done and we will continue to do so, managing the economy in the interests of working people, providing the Fair Work system so employees get a decent go—

Peter Slipper (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister will return to the question.

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

investing in skills so people have an opportunity in life, returning the budget to surplus because it is the right economic call. We know you are against all of those things. We will just keep getting on with the job.