Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am persuaded by Senator Abetz when he says Work Choices is dead—almost. Maybe a little bit longer and I will be completely persuaded. I am not persuaded that those sitting with him in the Liberal Party are not still wedded to it and would not like it to be brought forward and continued with. But we will check that later on today, I suspect. What I can say is that the idea of including transitional arrangements in modern awards was foreshadowed and is continuing. If you look back at the Liberals’ record in relation to this, they had award rationalisation as part of their process but never took it on. This government has set forward a system to ensure that modern awards will be in place. That is what this government has done, unlike the Liberals, who did not have the ability to pursue the rationalisation of awards as they claimed they were doing. What this government has done through a ministerial request is to ensure that the commission will undertake this work.