Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The government’s new workplace relations system has been designed to serve Australia well in the good as well as the difficult economic times. The Fair Work Bill has been designed as a stable, simple, fair, flexible and productive workplace relations system for business. Working Australians do not want a return to Work Choices and they certainly do not want a return to Work Choices in the middle of a global recession. Work Choices allowed basic pay and conditions to be stripped away and meant that an employee could be sacked for no reason and without any entitlement to redundancy. That is what those opposite deliver and hanker after and are still championing to this day. This is not the kind of workplace relations system that would give Australians confidence in these difficult global times. (Time expired)