Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister overturn his government's recent decision that now allows public servants to boycott the Anzac Day public holiday and substitute it for another day of leave out of protest?

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question goes to workplace relations issues. I'll go through that. First of all in terms of Anzac Day, we are in a room of 151 representatives, all of whom take Anzac Day incredibly seriously and all of whom on both sides have direct relationships with veterans, and we as a government share the view that every other member in this place shares about the significance and the importance of Anzac Day. For the entire nine years of the last government, a flexibility provision applied in a series of workplaces around the country—a provision for almost the entire nine years of the previous government—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting immediately.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You'll find that businesses around the country have provisions where individual workers can choose a different day, to switch days of public holidays, not as an issue of protest but as an issue of flexibility, which has worked for employers and employees across all public holidays around the country. If those opposite believe that those rules that have been in place for their entire nine years, if those opposite believe that those rules that are asked for by employers to be in agreements all around the country, if they want to draw a line under that because they think there is some sort of culture war to raise questions where none should be asked then they may well want to go down that path. But for their nine years, the same provisions applied.