Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It may be that the only thing that the coalition party room have in common with one another in these times is a dislike of trade unions—a dislike of the organisations which represent ordinary people and protect their interests and their standards in the workplace. I do not believe that that is a winning proposition with the Australian people at an election. The Australian people have rejected exactly that proposition, put in exactly those terms, by this same group of people at a previous election, when people very rightly rejected the Work Choices legislation of the Howard government and booted the coalition out of office.

These guys might want to structure an election entirely around an industrial relations proposition, but I say to coalition senators that this is a bad idea. I think it is a bad idea tactically, but I guess that is their business. More importantly, it is a bad idea because it fails to address the very real challenges facing Australia, and it fails to capitalise on the very real opportunities that we have.

Only a Labor government will have a real plan for Australia. Those things have been laid out clearly, well in advance of an election, by our leader, Bill Shorten. I am very proud of the work that Bill, his shadow cabinet and all of my colleagues in caucus have done in the period we have had in opposition. I look forward to fighting an election—to taking that conversation to the Australian people in the coming months.