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

I will not get distracted by innocuous interjections from the Leader of the Opposition, Mr President. As a government, we are ensuring that these workplace agreements are fair and reasonable for the workers of this country. That is exactly what we are doing. The good news is that since 7 May, to 31 August this year, 123,100 Australian workplace agreements have been lodged. That is 123,100 jobs, the mechanism for which the Labor Party are committed to destroying. They would destroy all of them, and how unfair could that be! It would be unfair to all 123,100. Currently, 110,351 are being processed. For the fairness test, where further information is being required, the figure is 44,751. Where the fairness test does not apply, the figure is 5,408. Those that have passed total 6,237, and so the list goes on.

Now the good news is that the workers of this country are being protected by the fairness test that we as a government have implemented. Surely that should be welcomed by somebody such as Senator Marshall, an ex-trade union official who allegedly devoted his working life to that. We now suspect that he, like all the others on that side, devoted his working life not to the workers of this country but to Labor Party endorsement to sit in this place, whereas we are committed to looking after the workers of this country—and the figures speak for themselves. The most important thing that we have done for the workers of this country is provide them with jobs. (Time expired)