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

Just for those listening in, I actually happened to be the minister at the table whilst Senator Cameron was asking question after question to try to assert the integrity of one Luke Collier who is a criminally convicted individual who worked for the CFMEU. There was a protection racket going for this individual. Now, talking about the minister, Minister Cash, it was accused during question time that the minister was 'in hiding'. That would be like saying Uluru is in hiding. It sticks out. The minister is here and ready, willing and able to answer any specific question that senators had. Indeed, the opposition were given the opportunity of six questions, and all they asked were, 'Why are you in hiding?' when she was clearly, transparently, not in hiding. She was there and present, willing and able to answer specific questions. But, of course, the Labor Party, knowing they had no more material, had nowhere else to go, and so they just threw the slur. That is the way that they do their business.

In relation to the protection of workers, which Senator Cameron sought to clothe himself with, let me remind the Australian people that he is a frontbencher in a party led by a former trade union leader, Mr Shorten, who has threatened the Australian people to run Australia like a trade union. Now, how do people like Mr Shorten and the trade union movement run a trade union? Well, ask Kathy Jackson; ask Craig Thomson; ask Bruce Wilson—ask Mr Shorten, the member for Maribyrnong, in fact, because what he did was a dirty deal to cut the penalty rates of the Chiquita Mushrooms workers to ensure that his union got money at the expense of low-paid workers. The only people that have cut Australians' penalty rates have been Mr Shorten and the Australian Workers' Union. Indeed, the most recent decision of the Fair Work Commission in relation to penalty rates—and let's get the history here—was as a result of deliberate amendments forced through this place by the dying Labor government, when Mr Shorten was the minister, to ensure that penalty rates were specifically looked at. Who looked at those penalty rates, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle? None other than people hand-picked by Labor onto the Fair Work Commission, appointments that I opposed and had indicated to Mr Shorten that I thought were not appropriate. Nevertheless, all of the people on the Fair Work Commission were hand-picked by Labor. Under Labor's legislation and by Labor's own hand-picked individuals, this decision was made. Why? Because they got mugged by the evidence, and the evidence is overwhelming: the higher the penalty rate, the fewer people employed in certain sectors. Might I add: we're not talking about nurses, ambulance people or fire brigades; we are talking only about the hospitality sector. They were mugged by the fact that that costs jobs.

Here we have a social justice decision out of the Fair Work Commission designed to give more Australians the opportunity to work, and what does Labor do? They say, 'We will seek to legislate to ensure that more of our fellow Australians stay on the scrap heap of unemployment.' And they claim to be the social justice party. Who do they lead-off with in this debate? The chief defender of the thugs in the CFMEU that Senator Cameron seeks to champion day after day at Senate estimates and in this place. You could never accuse Senator Cash of hiding, and it also highlights that Bill Shorten is unfit for government. (Time expired)