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

If there's one group of people who should be apologising when it comes to industrial relations, it's the Liberal Party of Australia. They should be apologising for the decade of low wage growth that they forced upon every single working Australian in this country. They should also apologise for the low productivity that was delivered to business as a result of their conflict driven, anti-agreement policies that actually hurt the interests of workers and businesses.

I predict this week is the week when the full reality of the federal election defeat is going to finally hit home for the Liberal party. They are finally waking up to the fact that their decade of low wages is coming to an end, because they lost the election and they lost it to a government that had a central platform of getting wages moving again. We are going to deliver on the mandate we received from the Australian people to get wages moving again. I know it's going to be very, hard for the Liberal Party, especially those from the state of Victoria after the weekend they had, but every worker is counting on us delivering this, and we're going to do it.