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

What this is really about is a coalition that still haven't gotten over the fact that they lost the last election. They can't get over the fact that there is a government that wants to close the loopholes. I mentioned earlier in the week that Senator Cash was saying that IR changes would take us back to the Dark Ages, but why stop there? Why not say that it's going to take us back to the Ice Age? That's right—you did that by freezing wages for 10 years. We had frozen wages in your ice age.

Why not go back even further to the Jurassic age, because there are certainly a lot of dinosaurs opposite when it comes to workplace relations policy! The Dark Ages, the Ice Age, the Jurassic age—take your pick! What we know is that you are the people who want to keep those loopholes open, who want to keep workers being exploited and who want to support employers who are undercutting their competitors.