Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

I think the Labor Party are getting somewhat desperate with their points of order. I was hardly a few seconds into your answer. If you want to talk about AWAs with the Commonwealth Bank, it is important to put it into context that they have been offering AWAs since 1997—for a period of about nine years. Under AWAs, the Commonwealth Bank has said that staff on AWAs get a higher salary and that they also choose not to have overtime or rostered days or some of the other award based allowances. They are getting remuneration in place of some of the allowances they previously received. That is what Work Choices is about: it is about choices. So, as the Commonwealth Bank indicated yesterday, workers at the Commonwealth Bank can determine that they have the capacity to make that choice.

In the past, with the Australian Labor Party, when a person applied for a job the employee was told, ‘You sign up to the conditions of the award; take it or leave it.’ They never complained when an employer had the capacity to say that to a worker. But they hate it when the Commonwealth Bank and the worker sit down together and work out an Australian workplace agreement.