GRIEVANCE DEBATE
Mrs ELLIOT (Richmond) (12:43): I rise in this grievance debate to address the demise of Australia's second-oldest political party, the National Party of Australia. It's indeed a sad day when the party of Tim Fischer, Doug Anthony and John Anderson is reduced to desperately chasing votes from One Nation. Before the rise of One Nation both the Liberals and Nationals were focused on traditional, conservative values while being economically responsible and supporting our democratic institutions.
While Labor and I, many times in this place, strongly disagreed with many coalition policies there was still a broad bipartisan respect for parliamentary standards, multiculturalism and Australia's postwar consensus that social cohesion and economic opportunity should go hand in hand. Coalition leaders of previous decades understood that leadership requires responsibility and restraint, and while political contests were robust they were not driven by the kind of grievance politics, divisive rhetoric and culture-war campaigning that has increasingly emerged with the coalition's attempts to court voters drawn towards One Nation's agenda.
Australians deserve much better than this. They deserve leaders who stand up for working people, not politicians who wrap themselves in the flag whilst voting against the interests of the very Australians they claim to represent. That's why today we must talk plainly about One Nation, because behind the slogans, outrage, fear campaigns and divisions there is a very clear pattern in a voting record that consistently undermines workers rights, workplace safety and the wages and conditions that Australian families rely on.
And what should concern every Australian even more is that the coalition are increasingly chasing One Nation down that very path. Instead of rejecting extremism and division, the coalition have chosen imitation. They see One Nation's rhetoric as a political strategy to copy rather than as a dangerous force to confront.
In doing so, they are abandoning the mainstream values that generations of Australians built this country on, values of fairness, decency, solidarity and the belief that every worker deserves dignity and protection on the job. Let us remember what the Albanese Labor government believes. We believe a person who goes to work deserves to come home safely.
We believe workers deserve secure jobs, fair pay, penalty rates, sick leave and protection from exploitation. We believe unions are not the enemy; they are the reason Australians have weekends, annual leave, superannuation, workplace safety laws and decent wages. In contrast, again and again One Nation has voted against those very important protections.
When legislation has come before this parliament to strengthen workplace rights, improve industrial protections or support workers against wage theft and exploitation, One Nation have sided with the big end of town rather than ordinary Australians. They have attacked unions while saying very little about corporate wage theft. They have criticised workplace regulation while workers continue to die on construction sites, in warehouses, on farms and in factories.
And they have opposed reforms designed to improve job security and strengthen collective bargaining. But Australians know better than that. We know prosperity is built from the middle out, not from the top down.
One Nation likes to portray itself as the party of battlers, but voting records matter more than slogans. When workers needed stronger protections against insecure work, where was One Nation then? When Australians fought for fair wage increases, where was One Nation then?
When Labor moved to strengthen industrial relations protections and close loopholes that allowed labour hire exploitation and the undercutting of wages, where was One Nation then? They were standing against working Australians. And now the coalition is walking down exactly the same road.
We're seeing a coalition opposition that increasingly borrows not just the language of One Nation, but it's political strategy. That is a strategy aimed at dividing Australians, creating scapegoats, attacking institutions, undermining trust and stirring cultural resentment. Instead of talking about wages, it is talking about fear.
Instead of talking about productivity, it talks about culture wars. Instead of talking about housing affordability and health care and cost-of-living relief, it copies the outrage machine. Why?
Because it thinks it is politically easier. Whenever conservative parties run out of ideas, they turn to division. That's the oldest political trick in the book: keep ordinary people fighting each other so that nobody notices who is really benefiting.
Well, Labor reject all of those kinds of politics. We believe Australians are stronger when we are united. And we know the real pressures on working families are not caused by the kinds of culture war distractions promoted by One Nation.
They are caused by stagnant wages, insecure jobs, housing stress, rising costs and years of neglect from the conservative governments. I would like to speak specifically about workplace safety. Every Australian worker has a right to return home safely at the end of the day.
That should not be controversial. But workplace safety laws exist for a reason, because history teaches us what happens when profit is placed ahead of people. Every protection in our workplace was won because workers fought hard for it.
None of these protections were handed down voluntarily by corporations. They were fought for. Let's put the slogans to one side and look at One Nation's real agenda, revealed in their parliamentary voting history.
One Nation have voted no to the right to disconnect; no to same job, same pay; no to making industrial manslaughter a crime; no to making it easier for casuals to become permanent; no to better rights for gig economy workers; no to better rights to keep transport workers safe; no to more rights for workplace delegates; and no to banning pay secrecy. And the list goes on.
The One Nation voting list goes on. This is a party that has repeatedly voted against measures designed to strengthen workers rights, lift wages and improve job security across the economy. Every time parties like One Nation attack workplace protections, they weaken the systems that save lives.
And the coalition's increasing alignment with One Nation rhetoric puts those protections at even greater risk. The coalition now faces a choice. Will they remain a party of mainstream economic responsibility and democratic stability, or will they continue chasing the politics of grievance and divisions?
Australians are noticing the shift. They see coalition figures amplifying conspiracy theories. They see attacks on multiculturalism and migration.
They see inflammatory rhetoric designed to create anger rather than solutions, and they see an opposition increasingly willing to legitimise One Nation's worldview in pursuit of votes. That is not leadership. That is political opportunism.
And that political opportunism comes at a cost because every time mainstream parties legitimise extremism, they drag public debate further away from practical solutions. Australians do not need more outrage politics. They need secure jobs, affordable housing, reliable health care and quality education.
They need energy policies that create jobs while addressing climate change and they need workplaces where people are safe and treated fairly. Labor will always stand up for workers. We're proud of that tradition.
We're proud to be the party that introduced Medicare, mandated employer funded superannuation and delivered paid parental leave. We're proud to be the party that supports collective bargaining and stronger workplace rights. And we're proud to stand against those who seek to divide Australians for their own political gain.
The measure of a political movement is not the anger it can generate. It's whether people's lives are better because of it. When Australians look at One Nation's record on workers' rights, workplace safety and economic fairness, they will see a movement that talks tough but votes against those very interests of ordinary working people time and time again.
When they see the coalition increasingly borrowing from that agenda, Australians will rightly ask, 'Who is actually standing up for workers?' Well, the answer to that is very simple, and it is Labor. Labor is the only party that consistently stands up for workers' rights. We always have been and we always will be.
We're committed to ensuring that Australians can access the services that they need. That was seen in the budget that we brought down. The budget particularly strengthened Medicare, a vital issue within the community, because Labor's focus is all about delivering for Australians.
The Nationals and the Liberals are all about dividing Australians and following One Nation and copying One Nation. But we in the Albanese Labor government remain firmly focused on delivering for Australians. Whether it's tax reform, whether it's housing affordability, whether it's strengthening Medicare, our focus is on Australians and what they need, not the divisive politics, particularly that which we see from the National Party as they chase One Nation down that road.
We will remain committed to listening and talking to Australians and delivering for them, particularly when it comes to cost of living relief because we know that people are doing it tough. That's why the measures in our latest budget were specifically designed to address many of those issues, particularly the tax reform around capital gains tax and negative gearing.
The changes that were made were well overdue. We need to help people get into their first home. At the same time, we continue to keep delivering assistance for education, for Medicare, for all of those cost-of-living measures that Australians rely on.
It's only Labor that can deliver for Australians, and only Labor that can deliver for working Australians.