Tomorrow Australians will decide who will lead this nation. No decision touches so many people, has so much impact on the country we live in.
This election is a choice between two parties with two very different values and beliefs of what Australia can be.
One who understands working families and believes in our future.
The other - Tony Abbott and the Liberal party - who will return WorkChoices, cut services our families and communities rely on, go back to policies of fear, fear of each other and the future.
Three years ago we were in the fight of our lives. Around Australia there were communities who were being ripped off by WorkChoices.
But we stood together to make sure everyone in Australia knew what was happening to their rights at work.
The Your Rights at Work campaign gave working people in Australia a voice.
Together we changed Australia.
We’ve ensured all workers are protected from unfair dismissal – that all workers have a secure safety net. Secure award conditions – access to penalty rates, overtime pay, leave loading.
We ensured the right to collectively bargain. That workers have a voice, a right to be a delegate, a right to be a member of a union.
Not everything is perfect – but we have created a bargaining system, that requires employers to listen to their workers and bargain in good faith.
We should be proud of what we have achieved. We got rid of WorkChoices. We won back our rights at work.
We must be able to continue our work to get better rights for Australian workers including equal rights for construction workers.
But the fight is back on. There is a very real danger that Sunday morning Tony Abbott will be Prime Minister.
We shouldn’t have to vote again to protect our rights at work. But we do.
The Liberal Party is committed to WorkChoices. In the lead up to the election they pledged to get rid of unfair dismissal protection and to re-introduce WorkChoices’ style individual contracts that would cut conditions, minimum starts, penalty rates. To - as Senator Abetz called it - ‘tweak’ the Fair Work Act.
When the election campaign hit Tony Abbott tried to back pedal.
On the first day of the election campaign Tony Abbott declared WorkChoices ‘dead, buried, and cremated’. Only three hours later he changed his story saying he couldn’t give an ‘absolute guarantee about every aspect of workplace relations’.
The very next day the Liberal Party announced legislative changes to the Fair Work Act.
What’s the truth Mr Abbott – is WorkChoices alive? Dead? Resurrected?
When he says he won’t change the legislation, that’s not good enough. There are 198 changes he could make that would cut workers’ rights without changing the Fair Work Act. He hasn’t ruled these out.
I called on Mr Abbott to rule out changing the unfair dismissal code to exempt small business? To rule out individual contracts. To support important conditions like annual leave, sick leave, redundancy pay, minimum start times.
Mr Abbott would not guarantee a single one of these rights.
Australian workers have the right to know what promises Mr Abbott has made to his big business mates.
Why hasn’t Mr Abbott released an IR policy before the election? What has he got to hide?
This has happened before. Remember in 2004?
Did we hear anything about WorkChoices? Not one word.
Not one word about the Liberals’ plan to attack the rights of million of Australian workers and their families. Not one word.
And what was Tony Abbott’s verdict on WorkChoices? It wasn’t all bad. He wrote a section of his book under the very title ‘WorkChoices wasn’t all bad’.
When Tony Abbott tries to claim WorkChoices is dead, it gets stuck in his throat.
But it’s not a question of what he says – it’s his record.
Over the last three years, unions have worked with the Labor Government to deliver for working people.
We’ve delivered the Fair Work Laws. The Government has made a commitment to increase national superannuation to 12%.
The government has delivered for working people in supporting our minimum wage claim. Workers on minimum wages received a historic $26 a week pay increase last month – they didn’t get this under Howard government.
In fact if Tony Abbott had got his way when he was Workplace Relations Minister Australia’s lowest paid workers would be $20 a week worst off.
We cannot forget that this Government delivered the stimulus packages that ensured hundreds of thousands of Australian jobs were saved and that out of all developed economies, Australia was the only country to avoid recession.
The Liberal Party has opposed the stimulus measures. They were prepared to wait and see as Australians lost their jobs.
The Labor Government has worked with unions to deliver strong national industry policy and procurement arrangements that support quality Australian jobs and industries. These policies will deliver new jobs and secure existing ones in the workplaces of many of you here today.
For the first time ever, we have a national paid parental leave scheme for all working mothers – starting 1 January next year. And yesterday the Labor Party announced two weeks paid leave for new fathers too.
Under Labor we have made progress. And there’s more to be done.
Unions have a vision for the future.
Australians want a prosperous society that delivers income and job security. They want to be respected at work and to be valued and recognised for the work they perform.
Australia needs a long-term plan to ensure we are a society that creates and sustains good jobs with stable incomes for working people and their families.
It needs to address job insecurity, casualisation and the rights of contractors; to build better skills and develop our workforce.
It needs to create better balance between work and care without compromising on financial security; and ensure our children have good schools, decent jobs and better rights at work.
Tony Abbott doesn’t share this vision. Julia Gillard does.
What does Tony Abbott really know about working people?
This is a man who grew up on the North Shore of Sydney, and went to Riverview - an exclusive private school, where they have five playing fields and views of Sydney Harbour.
Tony Abbott is the man who couldn’t get by without a Ministerial salary of over $200,000 and the extra perks of office – allowances, travel, a car – and who claimed he was on Struggle Street. He said he understood mortgage stress.
How insulting. How out of touch.
No-one who understands the struggle of working Australians and their families would introduce, support, and advocate WorkChoices that cut job security, cut pay, cut conditions.
Mr Abbott just doesn’t get it.
How can we elect someone who claimed WorkChoices was ‘one of the greatest achievements of the Howard government’?
Julia Gillard gets it. She’s stood on picket lines beside us. She has fought for the rights of workers.
The decision between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott couldn’t be clearer.
We must prevent the cuts to jobs and the services our families need.
We must stand up for a better future investing in the skills of our children.
We must build infrastructure that connects communities, not divides them, and that builds an economy that works for all Australians – not just the well off.
This election is for the Australia we want – an Australia that gives everyone a fair go at a better future.
Mr Abbott is a risk to every working person and their families.
We must not go back to WorkChoices – we must not let the next generation inherit fewer rights at work than we have today.
Working people need a voice in Canberra.
Julia Gillard is our voice.
Your vote tomorrow matters for you, your family, and our nation.
WorkChoices - Whatever the name, never again.
Jeff Lawrence is Secretary of the ACTU
R@W News is a forum for news, analysis and commentary about rights at work and related issues. The opinions presented in R@W News are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent policies or views of the ACTU.