LIBERALS CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH WAGES AND CONDITIONS

Media Release.

The Victorian Premier obviously didn’t get the Tony Abbott small-target memo on workplace relations.
 On the front page of The Australian newspaper today, Premier Napthine is reminding all Australians that undermining rights and entitlements at work is in the Liberals DNA.
 At their core, Liberals believe in unfair individual contracts that rip away wages and conditions from employees.
 Australians know, based on their record in government, that Tony Abbott and his team cannot be trusted on workplace relations.
 They didn’t tell anyone about their plans before the 2004 election – then they introduced WorkChoices.
 They told Australians in a $120 million advertising campaign that their rights and entitlements we ‘protected by law’ – then it was revealed that they weren’t.
 And they don’t want to tell the Australian people about their plans for workplaces before September 14.
 In 2008 Tony Abbott said Work Choices was “good for wages, it was good for jobs, and it was good for workers. And let’s never forget that.”
 In 2009 Tony Abbott said “workplace reform was one of the greatest achievements of the Howard Government.”
 The Liberals have shown that they are bad employers – Teachers, nurses and paramedics in Victoria have all suffered at the hands of Premier Napthine.
 Premier Napthine has called for the Federal Liberal Party to allow for increased flexibility in workplace relations.
What we know is that when Liberals talk about ‘flexibility’ they mean flexibility for employers to cut pay and conditions in a wages race to the bottom through take-it-or-leave-it individual contracts.
 Tony Abbott and the Liberals cannot be trusted with the rights and entitlements of hard working Australians.


Bill Shorten MP.
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations