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

I'm not surprised that, even at the very beginning of this debate, Senator Cash is taking the opportunity to wildly exaggerate the implications of this amendment and the government's proposed legislation more generally. As I've noted on many occasions, every time this government attempts to do something to level the playing field when it comes to workplace relations, Senator Cash, more than anyone else, and the coalition in general always make wild claims about what this is going to do to Australia.

We saw Senator Cash do that before the secure jobs, better pay bill. We all knew that the real problem for the coalition with the secure jobs, better pay bill was the name, because anything involving secure jobs and better pay had to reflexively be opposed by the coalition. But, in doing so, Senator Cash ran around the press gallery, seeking every interview she possibly could take to make wild sorts of claims that the government's legislation was going to return Australia to the Dark Ages and was going to see all the supermarket shelves in Australia emptied. As I've pointed out on a number of occasions, neither of those things are true. It turns out that Australia remains in 2024, not the Dark Ages, not 800 AD or 900 AD—whichever year you might want to choose as the beginning of the Dark Ages.

It turns out we were in 2024 when that legislation was passed, and it turns out that, as a result, Australian workers do have secure jobs and better pay. It turns out that, if you go to a supermarket in Australia, the shelves are not empty. The shelves are full of food, full of milk, full of eggs, full of orange juice—whatever it might be that you choose to buy in an Australian supermarket. The supermarket shelves are not empty, as Senator Cash predicted they would be.

Today we are no doubt going to hear more wild claims made by Senator Cash and her colleagues about what the impact of this legislation will be, when, in fact, the implications of this legislation will be to continue the path that Australia has been set on since the Albanese government's previous tranches of industrial law changes were passed, and that is higher wages for Australian workers, lower unemployment, more jobs being created, inflation coming down and less industrial action. I'm sure that, at some point today, we'll see Senator Cash or her coalition colleagues make claims that we are going to see mass unemployment and people losing their jobs. We're going to see claims from Senator Cash and the coalition that we're going to see unemployment go up. We're going to see claims that it'll crash wages. We're going to see claims that it's going to cause industrial conflict.

Why I'm confident we'll see those claims is that that's exactly what we've heard from Senator Cash and the coalition every other time that we've attempted to pass workplace law changes.