Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

It really is a shame, after an election, after a jobs and skills summit which saw the country brought together by a new government, that the only group that doesn't want to accept that people want to cooperate is the opposition. We know what it's like to be in opposition; we were there for a few years. The approach we took was that you pick your fights—you actually look for constructive opportunities when you can, and you pick your fights when you really have to. But this opposition—all they seem to do is: whatever the idea, they're against it.

Honourable senators interjecting—

They'd be against the sun rising in the east and they'd be against the sun setting in the west because they want to oppose everything that happens.

Now, the opposition want to continue fighting, just as they did for nine years. They want to continue delivering lower productivity and lower wages through a conflict driven IR system. But it's not just through an IR system that they want to maintain the conflict. I was very interested to see—