Apart from Joe Hockey’s policy announcement on parental leave, the debate between the Minister for Workplace Relations and his Labor counterpart, Julia Gillard, became a game of pet strikes for the two industrial relations spokespersons.
Joe Hockey spoke first and revealed the new Coalition plan that would allow an employee to double the length of their annual leave for half the pay, provided their employer consented. Mothers and fathers would be able to take a year off without pay to care for a child and, he added, grandparents of a newborn could take one week off unpaid.
After the announcement, Hockey fell back to accusing the Labor Party of being run by unionists and suggested they were conspiring to return to centralised wage fixing.
Gillard’s counterstrike was just as well-worn, attacking WorkChoices, particularly for differing markedly from the Coalition’s 2004 industrial relations policy. “And whatever policy document the Minister is announcing today won't be worth the paper it's written on, in exactly the same way."
