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

And Senator Abetz interjects again. Well, this is the man who cut the wages of the cleaners in Parliament House! This is the man who stood up for Work Choices, who pushed Work Choices his whole time here, and then cut the pay of the poorest workers in here: the cleaners that cleaned your office, Senator Abetz—that cleaned your toilet after you. And you cut their wages. That is what you did. What pathetic human beings some of you mob are over there.

Then they say, 'We will simply stop the hardship overtime.' This was a bad decision. Dr Jim Stanford, from the Centre for Future Work, has said this would make matters worse, if you tried to spread it out, and it would take 17 years to get the real purchasing power of wages back and inflation could make it 22 per cent worse. This was a bad decision by the Fair Work Commission. This was a decision that nobody in their right mind expected. This was a decision that was not based on the evidence that came before it, because there will be no jobs created. It will simply create hardship, and this mob is loving it. This mob are so bad they love workers getting their wages cut.