Work Choices killed off
The Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard in the House of Reps. Picture by Gary Ramage
The hyperbole was momentous but the performance pathetic as the Coalition meekly let Work Choices disappear.
Julia Gillard puts her case in parliament. Picture: Gary Ramage
If Julia Gillard looked relaxed yesterday as her counterpart, Julie Bishop, flayed accusations of capitulation and backflips at her in the final debate, it was because she still had a neat surprise for the skittish Opposition.
The Deputy Prime Minister was not about to let the Coalition hide from its past behind a wall of rhetoric.
But it would all turn to farce, with motions of dissent, walkouts, walk-ins and far too much shouting.
The House of Representatives had passed, on the voices without a single dissenting murmur, the last amendments to Labor's first industrial relations bill about 11.40am.
The Prime Minister called it a historic day, offering a roll call of the seats Labor secured in last year's election and putting their success down to the Coalition's workplace laws.
"Today we declare AWAs to be dead and buried," Mr Rudd said. "Today we declare this shameful chapter in the history of Australia's workplace relations to be dead and buried."
Ms Bishop, left little to argue because of the capitulation of her colleagues, seized on a Labor compromise that will allow mining and construction companies to offer temporary contracts to former employees who might return for another project. "This must be a humiliating backdown for the minister," Ms Bishop said to incredulous chuckles from the Labor front bench.
But when it came to the vote, the Coalition was silent as the bill passed.
The Deputy PM refused to let the Coalition go into Easter unscathed.
As Ms Bishop gathered her notes, Ms Gillard brought on a motion declaring, among other things, that the parliament would never again allow individual statutory contracts, such as the Australian Workplace Agreements that had just been consigned to history.
It was, as parliamentarians are wont to say, a stunt. It was, as Opposition manager of government business Joe Hockey complained, for the television news reports.
But it was made possible by the Coalition's policy confusion. And Ms Gillard was hunting for ammunition to prove the Coalition still believed in its once beloved AWAs.
"We come to bury Work Choices. We are putting the tombstone on it that says 'Rest in peace'. We want to find out if the Opposition wants to exhume it," Ms Gillard said.
Mr Hockey tried to have Ms Gillard gagged - a forlorn endeavour, given Labor's healthy majority.
Defeated, he tried again and again. His counterpart, Anthony Albanese, said convention advised he could not keep interrupting after every failed attempt.
The acting Speaker, Liberal Peter Slipper, agreed. That generated the embarrassing scene of the Coalition offering a dissent motion against one of their own.
It was a verbal dissent, not given in writing - another convention strained.
When the vote came, Coalition members, including some who had instigated the defence motion, walked out. The acting Speaker thought about calling them back but decided it was futile.
They came back in eventually, claiming it was Labor's fault for bringing on such a politically laden proposition.
After the procedural theatrics were over, two things were clear: Labor has delivered on its election promise to begin building a new industrial system, and the Coalition stood without the courage of its convictions.
The Australian, March 20 2008
Julia Gillard puts her case in parliament. Picture: Gary Ramage
If Julia Gillard looked relaxed yesterday as her counterpart, Julie Bishop, flayed accusations of capitulation and backflips at her in the final debate, it was because she still had a neat surprise for the skittish Opposition.
The Deputy Prime Minister was not about to let the Coalition hide from its past behind a wall of rhetoric.
But it would all turn to farce, with motions of dissent, walkouts, walk-ins and far too much shouting.
The House of Representatives had passed, on the voices without a single dissenting murmur, the last amendments to Labor's first industrial relations bill about 11.40am.
The Prime Minister called it a historic day, offering a roll call of the seats Labor secured in last year's election and putting their success down to the Coalition's workplace laws.
"Today we declare AWAs to be dead and buried," Mr Rudd said. "Today we declare this shameful chapter in the history of Australia's workplace relations to be dead and buried."
Ms Bishop, left little to argue because of the capitulation of her colleagues, seized on a Labor compromise that will allow mining and construction companies to offer temporary contracts to former employees who might return for another project. "This must be a humiliating backdown for the minister," Ms Bishop said to incredulous chuckles from the Labor front bench.
But when it came to the vote, the Coalition was silent as the bill passed.
The Deputy PM refused to let the Coalition go into Easter unscathed.
As Ms Bishop gathered her notes, Ms Gillard brought on a motion declaring, among other things, that the parliament would never again allow individual statutory contracts, such as the Australian Workplace Agreements that had just been consigned to history.
It was, as parliamentarians are wont to say, a stunt. It was, as Opposition manager of government business Joe Hockey complained, for the television news reports.
But it was made possible by the Coalition's policy confusion. And Ms Gillard was hunting for ammunition to prove the Coalition still believed in its once beloved AWAs.
"We come to bury Work Choices. We are putting the tombstone on it that says 'Rest in peace'. We want to find out if the Opposition wants to exhume it," Ms Gillard said.
Mr Hockey tried to have Ms Gillard gagged - a forlorn endeavour, given Labor's healthy majority.
Defeated, he tried again and again. His counterpart, Anthony Albanese, said convention advised he could not keep interrupting after every failed attempt.
The acting Speaker, Liberal Peter Slipper, agreed. That generated the embarrassing scene of the Coalition offering a dissent motion against one of their own.
It was a verbal dissent, not given in writing - another convention strained.
When the vote came, Coalition members, including some who had instigated the defence motion, walked out. The acting Speaker thought about calling them back but decided it was futile.
They came back in eventually, claiming it was Labor's fault for bringing on such a politically laden proposition.
After the procedural theatrics were over, two things were clear: Labor has delivered on its election promise to begin building a new industrial system, and the Coalition stood without the courage of its convictions.
The Australian, March 20 2008
