Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Deputy President, I thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Fair Work Amendment Bill 2012. I intend to commence my contribution with a quiz but, because everybody in this chamber and certainly most people watching or listening would know the answers, there will not be a prize. I am going to give some quotes and then rhetorically answer the time and the person. The first quote is this:

I give you this as an absolute guarantee here on your program. I will not be prime minister of this country and appoint some endless tribe of trade union officials to staff or ex trade union officials to staff the key positions in this body. That's not my intention. That's not the way in which it's going to work.

Of course, all of you put your hands down now because you know who it is. It was the then leader of the Labor opposition, Mr Kevin Rudd, in 2007, prior to the 2007 election. As we know, by June 2010 his party was sick of him so they got rid of him. For those of you who did not get that one right, I move on to the next quote and again I ask you who the person was and the place. The quote is this:

The Labor Party is the party of truth telling. When we go out into the electorate and make promises, do you know what we would do in government: we would keep them. When we say them we mean them.

The same person said, 'The question of truth is not a game and it is not my game.' The same person also said:

On the question of standards in government—openness, accountability, divorcing the workings of government from the influence of peddlers and the donors—we need to be absolutely right, not just better by comparison.

On the question of how we treat each other, we must show our values in action.

Those latter quotes, as you will know, are from the now Prime Minister of this country, Ms Gillard. Whilst my final quote is not exactly relevant to the debate, I think it is very timely in the context of 27 November 2012, and it is this from the now Prime Minister, speaking on Newcastle radio in November 2006:

… question time is supposed to be one of our key accountability mechanisms. If there is a big scandal or a corruption allegation, you are supposed to be able to get to the matter in question time.

Madam Acting Deputy President, there is no need for you to take notes because I will be providing you with a script of what has been said.

We are dealing today, regrettably, with something that flies in the face of the sense and the words of everything that I have just quoted, and that is the indecent haste with which this Fair Work Amendment Bill is being rushed into and possibly through this place. I was a participant in the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Committee process at its meeting last Wednesday evening in which I had the opportunity to question only four witnesses. There were many more who wished to express their concern at the speed, the haste and, indeed, the accuracy of what we have seen leading to the bill before us today. More time should always have been allowed. If Ms Gillard's words were to be anything other than an empty bell in a cathedral then she should have directed her Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister Shorten, to comply with and allow full transparency, full dialogue, a full consultation process and the democratic process of witnesses being allowed to come before a committee of the Senate and put their views before committee members. In most instances, they were denied this.

I do not intend to go at length over areas that our leader, Senator Abetz, did or, indeed, Senator McKenzie did when she was contributing to this discussion this afternoon, except to speak briefly to the superannuation issue. I think that Senator Farrell made a contribution whilst Senator Abetz was speaking. As has been said—