Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Can the minister explain just how the government is going to ensure that employees and employers understand their rights under the 2½ thousand pages of industrial legislation, regulations and explanations? Will it be using the 5.9 million WorkChoices booklets which are still being housed at Commonwealth expense, at $8,000 a month? Minister, isn’t it the case that all of this complexity, regulation and bureaucracy results from the Howard government’s blinkered and ideological obsession with stripping away workers’ rights? Isn’t the real agenda removing the rights Australian workers have enjoyed for 100 years?