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

The minority have control. Senator Abetz is controlling and manipulating the Liberal Party from the backbench. We know they are a divided, chaotic party, and Senator Abetz is in there, his tentacles all over it, controlling the Liberal Party.

The Liberal Party's view on Work Choices was clear: destroy the safety net for working people and destroy the trade union movement. They undermined the capacity of workers and their unions to bargain. They stripped back the safety net. They got rid of the no-disadvantage test that ensured workers' entitlements did not fall below the standard set in the awards. Senator Abetz was in here arguing for that day in, day out during the Work Choices debates. Do you remember those workers' entitlements that John Howard told us were protected by law? Penalty rates, overtime, allowances, basic provisions for low-paid workers. In the first year of Work Choices, workers on 70 per cent of non-union agreements in the retail and hospitality sectors lost either all or part of their weekend penalty rates, their entitlement to overtime and their allowances, amongst a long list of other enforceable rights. The coalition used their control in the House of Representatives and the Senate to come in here and smash the rights of working people in this country. Senator Abetz and the right-wingers in here clapped each other on the back when they destroyed the rights of workers in this country.

Under Work Choices, low-paid workers had their wages cut by up to 30 per cent as a direct result of Liberal-coalition policies. Nothing has changed. If the government gets their way, an average worker will lose $77 a week. If they think that is insignificant, then they do not understand the world from most people's position. They simply look at this from a position of power and privilege. Penalty rates mean the difference between registering your second-hand car and not being able to afford to buy a second-hand car. Penalty rates mean the difference between putting decent food on the table for your family and not having the weekly earnings to manage to do that. They mean the difference between your kids' netball and football fees being paid and your kids missing out. This money means the difference between celebrating important events and holidays with your family and facing the prospect of relying on charity at Christmas and birthdays or going into debt—debt you cannot be sure you will ever be able to pay back. Those in the government have never experienced it, so they just do not get it. These are decisions they will never have to make. I warrant they are decisions they have never had to make, otherwise they would not be pushing these cuts.

If the coalition understood what this meant, if they were actually in touch with the struggles that people have in this country, they would not be doing this. But they are so out of touch, they are so divided, they are so controlled and manipulated by the extreme right wing of the party that they do not think twice about doing this. The Prime Minister is doing this as part of the push to save his job. That is the reality. He is a weak Prime Minister, a Prime Minister who is just buffeted around by the right wing, pulled and pushed wherever the right wing wants to pull him and push him, a Prime Minister who shows no leadership and no capacity to stand up for what is right.

We heard from Ann Sudmalis, the member for Gilmore. When one in five workers are likely to be affected by these cuts—one in five workers in her constituency are going to be affected by this—she described cutting wages of young people as 'a gift'! How out of touch can any one individual be? How out of touch with your electorate could you be? Mrs Sudmalis has not got a clue. She went on to say that: 'We should look more broadly than our own hip pocket.' Well, her hip pocket is filled with 200 grand every year! But the workers that she wants to take these penalty rates from earn 35,000 bucks a year, and this is a 10 per cent wage cut. It is the equivalent of $20,000 coming out of Mrs Sudmalis's pay. So this is a huge hit on poor people.

Senator Ian Macdonald calls these cuts 'a step in the right direction'. What breathtaking hypocrisy from a politician who is willing to cross the floor on securing lifelong privileges for himself and supporting the anachronistic parliamentary gold pass. Senator Macdonald fires up when it is his own entitlements and privileges; he never fires up for working people; he never fires up for the poor and underprivileged. But take away the anachronistic gold pass and what do we see? We see a volcano erupting over there with Senator Macdonald: anger, threats and indignation, 'because you dared to take the gold pass away from me and my mates,' and yet workers are battling, even with the penalty rates, to put food on the table. How obnoxious can this lot over there get?

So 'a step in the right direction' said Senator Macdonald. Well, a step in the right direction to what? What does this mob have planned next for working people in this country? They may not want to call it Work Choices, but that is what they mean. What does the Prime Minister have to say about cuts to penalty rates—that weak, jelly-backed Prime Minister; that Prime Minister who only thinks about his own job, day in, day out, battling to put a decent economic thought together and jumping from one position to another? People know that he is hopeless. His own back bench know that he is hopeless. This is what he says about penalty rates:

… we've got to find solutions to create a more flexible, dynamic, 21st century economy out of which everybody wins.

Well, people do not believe that smarmy doublespeak about 'flexibility' and 'dynamism' from this government. Let me translate the babble from Malcolm Turnbull. They do not care about working people—that is the bottom line. They did not care when it was Work Choices, and they do not care today. The members of the government do not care about whether the rents get paid—unless, maybe, they are a landlord. Maybe Senator O'Sullivan might care, seeing as he has got 30-odd houses out there, as a landlord; he might care about it. But I do not think anybody else cares.