Senator SMITH (Western Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (15:12): It is indeed the festive season, so I would like to begin by extending my congratulations and, indeed, the congratulations of all coalition senators, to those political interns who have been running the opposition Senate question time tactics committee over the last few weeks! Senator Ian Macdonald: A very good point! Senator SMITH: Thank you, Senator Macdonald. There is still one more question time, but it is revealing that at a time when there is no shortage of issues confronting our nation that Labor senators on that side seek to confuse and whip up a bit of a fear campaign. Indeed, they try to trawl over an issue such as the Bell Group litigation, only to end up with it all over their faces. What we have seen this week is the modern Labor Party in bed with big unions. We only have to go back to the Bell Group litigation and the scandalous affairs that rocked the WA Labor government in the eighties to see the danger that arises when big Labor gets into bed with big unions. If there is some time available to me I will come to that point and the findings of that royal commission, which fired a shot across the bow of the modern Labor Party in the late 1980s and in the 1990s. But let me get to the issue—let me get to the suggestion from Senator Cameron this afternoon that somehow there was this grand conspiracy on the part of the coalition to let foreign workers run amok in our country. It is just a boldfaced lie. Opposition senators interjecting— Senator SMITH: And why is that? Why is it a lie? You could have read in The Daily Telegraph, Senator Dastyari, Senator Carr and Senator Bilyk, exactly why that is a lie. Senator Dastyari interjecting— Senator Dastyari, I know that you know what I am about to say. You know that I am about to talk about McDonald's. You know that I am about to talk about Clive Palmer— Senator Dastyari: Stop bringing McDonald's in here! Senator SMITH: You do, don't you? So let me talk about McDonald's and let me talk about Clive Palmer. The Daily Telegraph article of 29 November makes it crystal clear. I am reading exclusively from page 4 of The Daily Telegraph. It says: The former Labor government approved more than 800 visas for Chinese workers to fly into Australia and work at a mine linked to magnate Clive Palmer. Senator Ian Macdonald: What? This is the Labor government? Senator SMITH: It is, and there is more, Senator Macdonald. It is hard to believe, but there is more: The Daily Telegraph can reveal more than 850 Chinese nationals were given the green light to work at the Sino Iron Project on 457 visas between 2008 and 2013. At its peak there were 374 people on 457 visas working on the mine with 372 of them Chinese. MCC Mining (WA) Pty Ltd … was contracted by CITIC Pacific to undertake the procurement for the site. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was employment minister during a portion of the period when the 457 visas were approved— at the expense of Australian workers. If you were generous, Senator Macdonald, you might well think that is an isolated incident—a one-off. If you were being generous, you would have been too generous because only the day before in The Daily Telegraph it says under the heading, 'Shorten's foreign visa policy is fried', that Shorten—that is, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Bill Shorten—is attempting to whip up some kind of foreign worker backlash by acting tough on people arriving here on 457 visas. It goes on to say that it emerges that Labor's previous Gillard government, in which Shorten was workplace minister, oversaw a huge increase in the number of foreign workers' 457 visas which were extended even to those working at the likes of McDonald's, KFC and Hungry Jack's. It is not my place to lecture the modern Labor Party about its industrial relations history, but what is shameful is that the modern Labor Party has drifted so far away—I do not mind; I am big enough to say this—from its foundations and its legacy of genuinely looking after workers' interests and rights. They should be ashamed of themselves.