Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment Participation and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Government Service Delivery (Senator Arbib) to questions without notice asked by Senator Abetz today, relating to workplace relations.

In the minister’s answer to Senator Abetz’s third question the minister said that there was no government involvement in the deal that has been struck between the MUA and the company Total Marine Services. The minister is wrong; there was government involvement. There may not have been government involvement in the form of actually intervening to take action to stop this type of deal occurring, but the minister is part of the government that changed the workplace relations system in Australia so that this type of abysmal deal can now occur. It is amazing to sit here and listen to the minister defend and promote the actions of the MUA and their extortionate demands which will now see some workers get up to $50,000 extra in their pay packet without any productivity offsets. That is an absolute disgrace.

We see today Paddy Crumlin, the National Secretary of the MUA, positively gloating about the deal that his union has achieved. What does the Australian say? It says:

Maritime union leader Paddy Crumlin has declared massive pay rises won by offshore oil and gas workers were secured without productivity trade-offs, describing employers critical of the deal as “dinosaurs” ...