Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I think anyone who is listening in should always remember the modus operandi of the coalition in relation to workers' rights in this country. No-one ran harder against workers' rights than the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Eric Abetz. Senator Abetz was the main proponent to take rights away from workers in this country and he is now the main proponent to take away longstanding rights of the organisations of workers in this country. So let us not get carried away with all the nonsense that we have heard from Senator Abetz in relation to this debate. I am absolutely shameless—no shame—in standing up here for workers' rights and for the trade union organisations in this country because, without the trade union organisations in this country, workers around this country would be much worse off. They would be subjected to terrible laws, implemented by the coalition in their last term of government—the laws that dare not speak their name from anyone in the coalition: Work Choices.

That is why you need strong trade unions in this country and it is why you need debates on the demolition of workers' rights. You need debates in this place on the demolition of the rights of registered organisations in this country. You need to examine every aspect of industrial legislation put forward by the coalition because underpinning every aspect of the coalition's industrial legislation against the trade union movement is the need for them to pay homage to the big business groups which support their election in this country and which pay their bills when it comes to election time. So this is payback time to big business, which want to reintroduce Work Choices. The government are not game to reintroduce Work Choices quite yet, but anyone who is listening in knows that this legislation is the precursor to Work Choices. So make no bones about where they are coming from on this.

I am absolutely shameless in standing up here and supporting the trade union movement in this country and actually supporting the business organisations in this country, which have overwhelmingly rejected the propositions that are being put forward in this bill and which have been pleading for more time to have the implications of this bill analysed in a full and frank manner. That is why the opposition are saying that a reference committee should deal with the issue. It is quite easy to stand up here and look at Mr Williamson, Mr Thomson and the HSUA and say: 'This is the reason why we should introduce these draconian laws.' But you do not make laws because of the criminality of one small group in an overall establishment. That is what is happening here. Both Williamson and Thomson are before the criminal courts of this country. That is the reality. If you actually fiddle the books, the same as if any businessperson or unionist fiddles the books, then you deal with that through the criminal courts.