Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Migration Amendment (Temporary Sponsored Visas) Bill 2013. The sisterhood may have taken out one of their own the other night; the Labor leadership may have changed and you may now have Prime Minister Rudd; but, within the first 24 hours of Prime Minister Rudd reassuming the leadership, there is one thing that the Australian public have learnt and that is: they may have changed the Leader of the Australian Labor Party, but they have not changed their direction.

This bill is an example. If Mr Rudd had really meant it the other night when he said, 'I want to do a deal with business; I want to work with business,' this is the first piece of legislation he would have pulled. This legislation is nothing more and nothing less than the CFMEU, Minister O'Connor and former Prime Minister Gillard getting together without any consultation whatsoever with industry and without any regard for their own Office of Best Practice Regulation, which said, 'You have to assess regulatory impact in relation to this legislation.' No way—why do that when you can come to this place, stitch up a deal with your little mates in the Greens, the green doormat, and slam this legislation through the Senate with 3½ minutes of debate?

The Australian Mines and Metals Association got it right in their press release today: 'Day 1: Rudd sells business out to unions'. There you go. This is a business that is directly affected by this legislation and on day one AMMA is already issuing a statement—