Tasmanian public sector workers have every right to fear the election of a Hodgman Liberal Government
with the appointment of Senator Erik Abetz as the shadow workplace relations Minister,” said Labor
candidate for Franklin David O’Byrne
“Erik Abetz, who has form on IR, was a leading member of the HR Nicholls society, a radical extremist
fringe group advocating devastating attacks on the rights of working people in Australia. For Abetz and
his gang, even the now discredited and rejected Work Choices legislation did not go far enough for
them, for their agenda was to destroy the rights of Australian workers altogether.”
The State Liberal team for the next election is dominated by people hand picked by Erik Abetz, joined by
Michael Ferguson the former federal member for bass in their team, a person who voted for Work
Chioces 12 times in the previous Federal Parliament.
“Will Hodgman needs to be open and honest about the State Liberal party’s plan for retreat on the rights
of Tasmanian Public Sector workers. He needs to explain whether he will be leading this retreat or will
allow State industrial relations to be controlled by people whose strings are pulled by Senator Abetz.”
“Tasmanians have a right to know before election day whether this will be a repeat of the 1993 election,
where the Liberals Denison candidate Mathew Groom’s father Ray promised no changes to Industrial
relations and once elected went on to radically change the state’s IR laws, hurting thousands of ordinary
working people.”
“Both the new Liberal leader Tony Abbott and Deputy leader Julie Bishop have stated that individual
agreements, the discredited AWA’s, have a prominent place in coalition industrial relations policy.
Abetz, Abbott and Bishop have already shown their true colours and made clear they embrace former
prime minister John Howard’s description of Work Choices and the Liberal party’s anti-worker industrial
relations agenda as an ‘article of faith.’”
“You simply cannot trust the Liberal with workers rights, when stripping those rights is an ‘article of
faith.’”
“I have stood up for working people all of my life. It was the Liberal’s attack on the rights of working
people through the Work Choices legislation that inspired me to stand up to fight against a Liberal
agenda that has been and always will be about trampling on the rights of working people. I won’t stand
for it, and neither will the workers of Tasmania and their families,” said O’Byrne.
David O’Byrne, Labor for Franklin