Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Collins interjects, saying, 'Toyota didn't ask you to intervene.' You know what? I do not do the bidding of the union movement or the employers. I act in the national interest.

Opposition senators interjecting —

I know that is a foreign concept to those opposite, but we act in the national interest. To make it clear, we were not asked by Toyota to intervene. We intervene in the national interest, when we believe that there are matters to be determined. So we did not enter that debate in a partisan manner, to say that that which Toyota sought to put to its workforce was either right or wrong, good, bad or indifferent. All we were saying is the legislation does actually allow, and the enterprise agreement does actually allow, the proposition to be put to the workers. Why, Senator Collins, are you and the Labor Party and the union bosses so scared of giving workers a voice and a decision in genuine industrial democracies?