Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise on a matter of public interest concerning the coalition’s agenda to retain those parts of Work Choices that depress the wages of low-paid workers and make their jobs less secure. This agenda would increase economic inequality and damage the economy by strangling demand at a time when there is a consensus amongst business and economists that the government must stimulate demand.

Consider the public record. In evidence to the Senate’s inquiry into the Fair Work Bill, the Treasurer and Minister for Commerce in the Western Australian government, Mr Troy Buswell, outlined the Liberal Party’s plan to retain as much as that government can of Work Choices under the state law in Western Australia. The Liberal Western Australian government opposes the extension of rights to workers that will protect them from being unfairly dismissed. The Liberal Western Australian government opposes a minimum employment standard that limits weekly ordinary hours of work to 38. The Liberal Western Australian government will reintroduce take-it-or-leave-it employment contracts as a condition of getting a job. The Liberal Western Australian government will make it easier for jobs to be contracted out and outsourced with no protection for employees’ wages and working conditions.

And it is not just the Western Australian Liberal Party. In a speech to the Young Liberals the other weekend, Senator Fifield made some quite curious remarks about Work Choices. He said:

... there is a reassessment by many in the Coalition as to the wisdom of having been so quick to abandon our core principles on workplace relations after the election.

Then he said—he must have thought about it:

Don’t get me wrong. Of course, the brand and policy iteration known as “Work Choices” is dead.

So, one minute Work Choices is a core principle of the Liberal Party; the next it is simply a policy iteration—a brand to be discarded like an empty can of Coke. Which is it?