John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

I am being kind to you. That is also the case in the current situation. The safety net has been withdrawn by the withdrawal of very basic and very simple award conditions. Obviously, if you destroy the safety net then you can go below. So to come here now and feign that one is putting in a stronger safety net is just a nonsense—absolute nonsense—when there was no safety net there in the first place. It is always good for people such as Senator Parry and others to feign that they are the protectors of the workers. Of course, they have never done anything like that themselves. As a matter of fact, the first worker they meet will be the first. You would not even recognise one, Senator Parry. Anyway, that is for another time and another day. The simple fact of life is that those people who are in vulnerable industries, such as those who work in the retail industry, are in real trouble indeed when you hear about the likes of the Darrell Lea episode.