Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Given that the Assistant Minister to the Treasurer has said that young Australians should get a high-paying job to buy their first home, why is the government now standing by and doing nothing while the wages of young Australians are being cut?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Members on both side! The member for Hume! The Minister for Defence Industry, representing the Minister for Employment.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly, Mr Speaker. Not content with his first crime against the truth, the Leader of the Opposition is now attempting another crime against the truth. They say that, of course, the first crime is always the hardest, and after that it gets a lot easier. In the election campaign, we saw the ludicrous 'Mediscare' campaign—his crime against the truth, frightening old ladies by having CFMEU thugs ringing them about 9.30 at night and telling them lies about what we were going to do or not do to Medicare.

Now, we are seeing the Leader of the Opposition in an act of extreme audacity. We have to admire his capacity for audaciousness because this is the man who, when he had the opportunity as secretary of the AWU, routinely traded away the penalty rates of the people that he represented in the most low-paid jobs in Australia, like cleaners, like people who worked for Chiquita Mushrooms, like people who worked in the circus. He did not just do this once or twice. It became a very routine habit. For the Clean Event workers, he did it twice. In 1998 and 2006 he signed EBAs that traded away their penalty rates. With Chiquita Mushrooms, he did it in 2001 and 2004—trading away their penalty rates.

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

The Leader of the House will resume his seat for a second. The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On direct relevance: we are now halfway through the answer and the minister is yet to refer to government policy and why they are not taking any action.

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

I thank the Manager of Opposition Business. It is fair to say that the minister is very close to the line. He might even be leaning over the line. The question had two aspects to it. It had housing affordability and pay cuts, referring to penalty rates. So he is in order—just.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course, I am in order because, Mr Speaker, the question was about cuts to wages and penalty rates. What I am pointing out is that this Leader of the Opposition has form when it comes to ripping away the penalty rates of workers. I am not reflecting on you, Mr Speaker; I could not agree with you more. I am in order and I remain in order. With the Cirque du Soleil, he did it in 2001. With the Melbourne & Olympic Parks Trust, he traded away the penalty rates of workers in 2001 and 2003. And there was Cut & Fill engineering in 2003 and 2005. On nine separate occasions as secretary of the AWU he signed away the penalty rates of workers. Worse than that: he did it in the case of Clean Event while—(Time expired)

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table an article where the Assistant Treasurer says that you need to get a highly paid job to buy home. It is an article from The Australian.

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

Leave not granted. The member for Gorton does not have leave. I am being lenient on this to keep things moving. I have made it clear before that where documents are freely and publicly available I am not inclined to even ask for leave. Certainly, that applies to parliamentary papers to Hansard. I think it applies to newspaper articles, which do not really need to be tabled for people to access them.