Senator MARSHALL (3:59 PM) —I enter this debate on the motion relating to the budget and the economy rather surprised that the opposition would move such a motion in general business, especially when they talk about trying to ensure that no Australian is worse off, given their record. It was interesting to hear Senator Eggleston say that to run a good, strong, modern economy you need good policies and hard work. That is something the previous government, now the opposition, used to talk about a lot but do very little of indeed.

A number of years ago I remember speaking in this chamber about the skills shortage—the very skills shortage that plenty of members of the now opposition were prepared to admit at the time. In fact they were happy to say it was a skills crisis. I remember Senator Abetz saying that the skills crisis is a victim of our success with the economy, and I will come back to that in a minute. It is interesting that the shadow Treasurer—the shadow Treasurer who wanted to be a member of the Labor Party but did not join, thankfully—now says that the skills crisis does not exist at all. It seems very strange to me that the new opposition seems to be floundering around. They are not sure what to ditch from when they were in government, what to discount, what to abandon, what to keep and what to modify. They seem to be all over the place.

The fact is the previous government let Australia down in terms of the skills issue. They did not invest in training. They did not ensure that there were enough training programs and systems in place to identify that the skills crisis was coming. Of course, Senator Abetz’s remarks were telling, because you do not have a modern efficient economy that you have actually planned for unless you address one of the key elements, and that is ensuring that there are enough skilled workers in place to cope with the growth that a successful economy will deliver. One can only conclude that when Senator Abetz, speaking on behalf of the then government said, ‘The skills crisis was simply us being a victim of our own success,’ any economic success that the previous government had was purely accidental.

If they had planned for it, there would not have been a skills crisis in this country. The fact is they were not planning for it. They were relying on the general strength of the global economy and reaping significant rewards from that. They failed to address the skills crisis and have clearly made Australians worse off as a result. I find it strange that they are now asking us to guarantee that no Australians will be worse off as a result of the budget when they did nothing to put in place all the factors that need to be in place and well entrenched in order to run a strong economy.

Of course the same is true for inflation. When did the inflation genie get out of the bottle? It was some time ago. It was not just the Labor Party talking about it at the time. The Reserve Bank gave warning after warning to the then government about the inflationary pressures of their policies and they went on spending like drunken sailors and making promises right through the election campaign. An example of the ridiculous expenditure they were engaging in—and it was drunken sailor-type spending—was the Dairy Regional Assistance Program which gave a grant to the Indigo Cheese factory in the electorate of Indi. The former government in May 2005 gave a $426,962 grant under that Dairy Regional Assistance Program. But here is the catch—as part of the grant the former government paid an instalment of $22,135 of taxpayers’ money on 28 June 2007. The trouble is, 28 June 2007 was three months after the factory had already closed its doors.

Under the former government there was a slack regime in place for these programs. I probably will not have time to go into all the regional assistance programs which were rorted to the hilt by the previous government and by the National Party in particular. We will just concentrate on this one for a moment. Once the previous government was unceremoniously chucked out by the electorate and after seeking legal advice, the factory found that they were actually deemed to have complied with their contractual obligations even though they had accepted money three months after the factory had closed.

Just think about that, the factory shuts in May 2007, but this company under a scheme managed by the previous government still gets $22,000-odd of taxpayers’ funds just before the end of the financial year because under the contract that they had signed under the former government’s regional arrangements, you could get that money. The factory did not even have to stay open! This is the sort of program—

Senator Ian Macdonald —Tell us about the dead tree.

Senator MARSHALL —I know Senator Ian Macdonald does not like to listen to these real-life examples of how incompetent the previous government was in managing these programs. We will talk about lots of things, Senator Macdonald, but maybe you should listen and you might learn something. One of the lessons you are going to have to learn in opposition is how to actually run and manage yourselves and present yourselves to the public where you might become competitive again.

Senator McGauran interjecting—

Senator MARSHALL —Senator McGauran laughs. I know he has had many years previously in opposition and he did not like it. He knows and probably recognises and lays awake at night thinking, ‘We’re going to do the same things as we did in that last long 13-year period during opposition.’ You have leadership tensions again; it is all over the place. How long will the existing Leader of the Opposition last?

Senator Ian Macdonald —About as long as Kevin before Julia gets in.

Senator MARSHALL —Oh, do you really think so? Senator Macdonald, I would like to have a little wager on that with you because I do not think Mr Turnbull would last very long at all.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Forshaw)—Order! It is against standing orders to have any proposed wagers across the chamber. You should direct your remarks through the chair.

Senator MARSHALL —Thank you, and I will. It is a little bit ironic that the current Leader of the Opposition was a member of the Labor Party and he is about to be replaced by the shadow Treasurer who wanted to be a member of the Labor Party. Then again, you have a Leader of the Nationals in the Senate who is not even a member of that particular party. There is a sort a bizarre world going on in opposition. I do feel a little bit sorry for you. In time you will work it out. It will settle down and you will start to focus on some of the issues that actually impact upon Australian people.

One of the other things I found interesting in what Senator Eggleston talked about is their sudden new-found interest in looking after the most vulnerable Australians. I find that a little bit strange coming from an opposition that, when in government not long ago, introduced one of the most evil, pernicious pieces of legislation called Work Choices that systematically ripped away the wages and conditions of Australians. And do you know which Australians were most affected?

Opposition senators interjecting—

Senator Sherry —They have still not learnt their lesson.

Senator MARSHALL —This is the other thing I find interesting when listening to the interjections from the other side: they are defending their position. They are laughing about it because they have still not accepted the fact that Work Choices hurt working people. And the people who have been hurt most are the most vulnerable people in our community—the people in low-paid, low-skilled jobs who did not have any bargaining power. They allowed and set up a system of systematic abuse and the stripping away of wages and conditions.

The strange thing is that lots of evidence about the massive abuses that were taking place is now coming from departments that are no longer controlled by that government. I do not like to use the word ‘hypocritical’ very often, but I do find it somewhat hypocritical that the previous government—the now opposition—have a new-found interest in vulnerable Australians when they did not really seem to care before. If they had cared before, they may not be over on the opposition benches now. But it is a little bit late to care now. We see their new-found interest in openness, in transparency and in fairness and we find they have a new-found interest in VSU. During estimates we had senators coming in saying, ‘Isn’t it outrageous the impact the VSU legislation has had on people who used to work for the university unions?’ I did suggest to the coalition senator during estimates that maybe he would want to move a private member’s bill to undo the legislation that he supported in the previous government.

It is quite bizarre to see these flips, flops, flaps and fuddles going on with the opposition as they try to sort themselves out and work out what they actually stand for now, where they want to target themselves and who they need to attract to give them some traction in the political arena. Given their performance so far, I think they are going to struggle.

We have heard a lot of data on what Work Choices actually did to people, but I want to give the Senate some information about some of the impacts of agreements that have failed the fairness test. I understand that the previous minister, Mr Hockey, in some of his interviews around the place explained the introduction of the fairness test in this way: no-one in the cabinet of the previous government seemed to understand that Work Choices could actually rip away the terms and conditions of employment of many Australians and reduce their wages. They were either all ignorant—I suggest that that is what he must have been getting at—or asleep at the wheel. That is not surprising. That was obvious in so many things that the previous government was flapping around trying to do. But he wanted to be the champion and, once he was able to convince his cabinet colleagues that Work Choices could rip away the terms and conditions of vulnerable working Australians, they wanted to introduce a fairness test. It was a phoney fairness test, but nonetheless there it is.

What happened was that so many agreements still continued to fail the fairness test—the miserable low base that the previous government decided to put into the fairness test. For having their conditions, their penalty rates, their shift loadings, their public holidays and all those things ripped away the phoney fairness test was put in place to compensate them. But of course the problem was that that did not discourage shonky employers from trying to rip everyone off as much as they could. I do recognise that there are many fine employers that have integrity and treat their employees very well indeed. But there are a lot that do not, and nothing could be a better example than the fact that, of all the agreements that failed the government’s fairness test—and you should understand that the fairness test is for the worst possible wages and conditions allowed for by law—50 per cent failed because they offered less than $50 per week below the required rate and 39 per cent failed because they offered from between $50 and $199 per week below the required rate. And again, that is the lowest rate required by law. A further 10 per cent failed because they reduced wages and conditions combined by between $200 and $499 per week below the legal minimum, and one per cent—and thank heavens it was only one per cent—failed the fairness test because those AWAs were offering more than $500 per week less in wages and conditions than the legal base minimum rate.

Even with the fairness test in place, with employers supposedly understanding it and with the $100 million or so of taxpayers’ money that the previous government spent on advertising as well, we still had this large percentage of agreements coming through trying to rip off workers, many by more than $500 per week below the worst possible wage allowed under law.

Mr Hockey was just dead wrong when he said that the government did not know that this was going to be the outcome and that he had to explain to his cabinet colleagues that this could be a consequence of Work Choices. In the first WorkChoices booklet that went out with the original Work Choices legislation, there is the example of Billy. This is what the government said in their advertising propaganda:

Take it or leave it was a common approach with AWAs.

The government’s own propaganda talked about a Work Choices AWA being able to strip away public holidays, rest breaks, bonuses, annual leave loadings, allowances, penalty rates and shift and overtime loadings. We have Mr Hockey saying that the cabinet ministers did not understand that these things could actually happen, but it was in their own propaganda. I may be wrong about this, but I think on that initial campaign the then government spent $55 million of taxpayers’ money to make people sign a take it or leave it AWA which made them worse off.

I can only suggest to the now opposition that it is a little bit too late to care. You did not care then; you do not really care now. When the next election comes around you will not be talking about Work Choices and the reintroduction of these sorts of AWAs, yet that is what you want to do. The Australian public know it. We see it throughout the public hearings into the inquiry into the bill that is about to come before the Senate—the constant defence, day after day, witness after witness, by coalition senators protecting AWAs, harking back to the glory days, trying to get employers to say we really want them, just so the coalition can put AWAs back on the agenda and introduce them again. It is because they have not learnt from their mistakes. They do not care about vulnerable Australians; they do not care about working people. Quite frankly, this motion before us today is just a political stunt, an opportunity for them to get up and grandstand, but it means nothing—

Senator Brandis —You wanted to abolish the carers allowance.

Senator MARSHALL —It is interesting that Senator Brandis joins the debate at the last minute and it will be interesting to hear what he has to say about this issue. I will be interested to hear what you say, Senator Brandis, when you get up during this debate and make your contribution. But you, like everyone else, are a bit late. (Time expired)