Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on action being taken by the government to protect Australia's emergency services volunteers and, in doing so, deliver on our election commitments?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. I remember well the visit my wife and I made to Wye River, where we saw the extraordinary work done by the volunteers of the Country Fire Authority to protect their community, where—under the leadership of the captain of their brigade—they done the planning, they had done the community outreach and they had set the measures in place that ensured that, when the inferno came, no lives were lost.

Those are the volunteers that stand between Victorians and the worst that nature can throw at them. We defend them. The Leader of the Opposition and his party are tied up with another militant union that is seeking to undermine the independence of the volunteers, to disrespect them, to remove their autonomy, to undermine their interdependence and, in doing so, to undermine their very ability to recruit. Who do they think stands between them and their home this summer? Who will it be? It will be the volunteer firefighters of Victoria. The volunteers are that great, selfless Australian tradition of courage and sacrifice. We stand for them; Labor abandoned them.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Gorton is warned.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We said at the election that we would stand with the volunteers. We said we would amend the Fair Work Act to ensure against those changes to their enterprise bargaining agreement—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith is warned.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that were so extreme—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Griffith will leave under 94(a).

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that the Andrews government's own minister resigned. A Labor minister resigned in protest; the board had to be sacked. Sixty thousand volunteers were an uproar, with their ability to recruit undermined and their morale undermined. What sort of recklessness is this? You have to ask yourself: how beholden is the modern Labor Party to militant unions that they are prepared to take on 60,000 volunteers? I tell you, the Labor Party of Hawke, Wran and Keating would have never done that. But what we see now is a Labor Party that is captured by militant trade unions that will stop at nothing to secure their industrial purposes.

What about when the Labor Party talks about equality and fairness? What about the Warrnambool Fire Station, where the paid firefighters—the union members—refused to walk through the same door as the volunteers? They refused to walk through the same door is a volunteers; what is the message they are sending? We are defending the firefighters as they defend us.