Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw the term. Those on the other side, for the many years that they were in government, did not care about working Australians—the same working Australians I represented in my previous employment. I saw, day after day, the impact of their government’s choices on those working Australians, the working men and women of Australia, who voted for the Rudd government because they had had enough of the now opposition’s industrial relations system.

Those opposite are just grandstanding again. They come into this chamber and they grandstand and talk as though they care about people. They do not; they care about themselves. We have seen how they treat workers. We watched the implementation of balaclavas and dogs on the wharves. We have seen that sort of thing. The rest of Australia has seen it. They have no support for workers. They do not even accept the need for the stimulus package, which is the greatest way to increase the standards for Australian workers because the basis of it is increasing employment.

Our modern awards will simplify and significantly reduce more than 2,400 state and federal awards and instruments into around 130 streamlined, simple modern awards that are easy to find and apply. This will provide much-needed simplicity for employers operating across state boundaries. It is a reform that employers have been arguing for, long and loud, over decades, and we are doing something about it. Overwhelmingly, the task of award modernisation has been a major success, managed by the AIRC—which we know those on the other side do not agree with having—with professionalism and expertise. It is a fairly major task to reduce all these awards and to bring Australia into the present.

As indicated in the past, the minister is prepared to intervene in the award modernisation process. Where that is required, she will do that. Mr Turnbull, who voted five times in parliament against the infrastructure stimulus plan and who is the Leader of the Opposition, does not support working people. It is a baseline standard of the opposition that they do not support working people. If they did, as I said before, they would support this government in the plan to build roads, schools, rail and hospitals and in regard to national broadband, in which my home state of Tasmania is leading the way. It has had a significant effect there and in other areas.

I want to point out two major projects for Braddon that were just announced last week: the restoration of the tall ship the Julie Burgess and the establishment of four community infrastructure construction and maintenance teams. These are jobs for ordinary working Australians. These are jobs that will not only help save the economy but give ordinary people the chance to work under a new streamlined approach. That approach is absolutely necessary to ensure that we move into the future in a balanced way that is fair for employees, employers and businesses both large and small—which also tend to be forgotten by those members on the other side all too often.