Mr ANDREWS (Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) (10:40 AM) —At the end of this parliamentary year, the overblown rhetoric from the Leader of the Opposition demonstrates one simple fact, and that is that the Australian Labor Party has no ideas and no policy. The reality of its attack on this legislation, its so-called policy to roll back this legislation, is no policy whatsoever. This is a party that has reached the sad state where it is not able to bring some policies forward to the Australian people in the contest of ideas in Australia. That is the reality of what we have seen from the Australian Labor Party today.

It is well known and well understood that these reforms are needed for Australia. We have had the OECD, the IMF, the Governor of the Reserve Bank and the Productivity Commission all saying that these further changes to workplace relations in Australia are needed to ensure that we set up this country as best we can for a prosperous future. The reality is that some of these changes have been supported in the past by Labor luminaries in Australia. We can go back to Gough Whitlam, talking about the need for a national system. We know that Neville Wran supported a national system. As long ago as 1991 we saw Mr Carr, the previous Premier of New South Wales, write that there was a need for a national system of industrial relations in Australia.

But it is not only those. What we have is this hypocritical stance from the Australian Labor Party, having supported what Paul Keating belatedly recognised in the early 1990s as the need to make a change away from the rigidities and the inflexibilities of the old award system to a system based on agreement making at the workplace. The Leader of the Opposition was the passenger then, following Paul Keating; he is the passenger today, simply following the bosses of the union movement. Yesterday we had Sharan Burrow down here telling him what to do. But it was Paul Keating who said back in 1993 that this is the way in which we need to go. Let me remind the Leader of the Opposition and the people of Australia what Paul Keating said about the changes that were needed in 1993. He said:

He continued:

And he said:

This man who is now the Leader of the Opposition is always a passenger. He was a passenger when Paul Keating was driving reform; he is simply a passenger today when the union bosses, for their own sakes, are saying, ‘We are opposed to these reforms in Australia.’

For example, there are provisions in this bill that the Australian Labor Party voted against that provide further protection for outworkers—some of the most vulnerable workers in Australia. The Australian Labor Party voted against those in the Senate. In the Senate, they voted down protections for outworkers. That is an indication that the reality is that the Australian Labor Party, as far as this debate is concerned, are not about protecting ordinary Australian workers; they are simply about protecting their jobs and protecting their union mates, who pay millions of dollars to ensure that they stay in this place. That is the reality of the opposition.

As a real Labour leader, Tony Blair, once said, ‘You should remember that fairness in the workplace starts with the chance of a job.’ That is what he told the Trades Union Congress; that is what he had the courage to do. This Leader of the Opposition does not have the courage to stand up and put forward some policies for the good of the Australian work force. He simply does what he has been told. Tony Blair told the Trades Union Congress, ‘We have nothing to lose but our dogma,’ and that can be applied equally to the Australian Labor Party. They have got nothing to lose but their dogma. This bill is for the good of Australia. It is for the good of Australian workers. It is about setting up this country for prosperity in the future. I move:

Question put.