Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

We would move along a lot quicker if the honourable minister would desist from trying to question motives. It was her own Labor Senate colleagues, on page 2 of their report—so it seems the minister did not even get to page 2 of the Senate committee report that her own colleagues wrote—who told us that the current regime of workplace relations ‘resulted in the most complex and highly regulated industrial system of any OECD country’. Very tellingly, there was no footnote in the report, and that is why I wanted to see what the veracity of that comment by Labor senators was, because it is a general issue relating to this bill. It clearly is relevant because, if it were not relevant, I am sure Labor senators would not have included it in their report.