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

Yes, Paul Kelly the singer, not the political analyst! For the Hansardrecord, I was being a bit funny there, hopefully! This is a classic example of getting into power and not being able to use that power effectively. That is what has happened here. Let's see what comes out of the crossbenchers tonight. My main concern—and I am very concerned about water in South Australia—in relation to this bill is that working people do not end up being pushed back and their standard of living falls; where the unions operating in the building and construction sector have no capacity to bargain effectively; where workers in every other area of industry across the country have certain rights and, under the Fair Work Building Commission and now the ABCC, if this bill goes through, you see building workers being treated as second-class citizens and ending up not being able to negotiate and bargain on issues that every other worker in the country has access to.

This looks to me to be an absolute fizzer in terms of a deal on water for South Australia. This is simply putting building workers around the country in danger of not being able to bargain effectively and not being able to bargain on the casualisation of the workforce, on temporary workers and on apprenticeships in the industry. This is really a bad bill. For Senator Xenophon and the Xenophon political party to be on the TV tonight crowing about doing a deal and giving the odds as to how the bill will go through—I appeal to Senator Xenophon. He should sit down with the Labor Party, talk through these issues and work on how we can improve what he has got and in doing that ensure that we protect workers' rights in this country.

This is bad deal after bad deal getting done here. I hope that Senator Hinch gets a better deal. I am not sure what you are going to be reporting in terms of your deals, but, if they are anything like Senator Xenophon's deals, it will be crap. It will be absolutely nothing. I hope that we can do something about this.

Minister, can you explain how this COAG process will work?