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

The minister summed it up in his remarks or perhaps earlier in the committee debate—I think this is right—when he used the phrase ‘that we are about removing unions’ privileged involvement’. That is the agenda here.

The agenda is not how we set up an arrangement which is most likely to minimise workplace injury. The agenda is not one of sound public policy. The agenda is not what is effective. At its heart, this legislation is about the government’s difficulty with anything that has collective employee representation involvement. It is about your dislike of the trade union movement. You cannot help yourself when you are confronted by reasonable amendments put in this place. You have to go yet again to that same old reflexive union-bashing agenda that we have heard so many times in this place from this minister.