Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I do not think that I will go beyond what I think is about the fourth occasion when I have simply explained without hysteria that the government has accepted, in part, recommendation 50, and I have already explained at least two or three times the reasons for that and the place of the commission within the Fair Work system.

But I cannot let go unchallenged Senator Abetz's exaggeration around the level of concern with the name 'Fair Work Commission' so I will relate to him one anecdote. After the last estimates, when he put on a very similar performance to what we are experiencing today, I was asked by Ai Group to come and talk to a group of their HR specialists. I took the opportunity of that presentation to ask the room of somewhere between 50 and 70 HR specialists within Ai Group what they thought about the issue of the name change—and it was sitting in my mind recently, if I recall correctly, from around about the time of the estimates performance of Senator Abetz.

Do you know what they said, Senator Abetz? They said, 'Change it to commission.' They said, 'Change it to commission.' They said, 'Change it to commission.' Not one of them said, 'Change Fair Work.' Give us a break!