Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Certainly. In the system that existed up till now if employees wanted the protection of the union they joined one and could ask for collective bargaining. What the Howard government has put in place is a system of individual workplace agreements where unions are excluded from the workplace in many instances. That is not the kind of economy that ordinary people in Australia want. It is not the legacy that that ex-serviceman or most Australians want to leave to their children. It is an Americanisation of the workforce, and people know enough about the American industrial system to not want it. That is a system where the employer has great leverage and the employee does not. You only have to look at Wal-Mart in the United States, the largest food retailer there, employing over a million workers. Wal-Mart workers receive lower wages than other retail workers and have to be heavily subsidised by the state in terms of benefits for health care, housing and so on. (Time expired)