Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (14:02): Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I thank the Leader of the Opposition for precisely proving my point for me. Let me say this to the Leader of the Opposition: if the pilots or the transport workers or the licensed aircraft engineers or any other pivotal part of Qantas's workforce had walked off the job at 2 pm on Saturday and grounded flights at 5 pm on Saturday I would have uttered every same word of criticism as I have uttered of Qantas, and I would have taken the matter to Fair Work Australia, and I would have sought to have the industrial action terminated. Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER: Order! Ms GILLARD: If any union, if any working person, had engaged in conduct that destructive— Honourable members interjecting— The SPEAKER: The House will come to order! If the Assistant Treasurer and the member for Fadden want to have a discussion they can have the discussion outside if they continue! Mr Baldwin interjecting— The SPEAKER: Can we interrupt the member for Paterson by continuing? The Prime Minister has the call. She should be heard in silence. Ms GILLARD: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I would have been as critical of that action as I was of Qantas's action. I would have described them both as extreme decisions and I would have had the government respond in precisely the same way. That is because I believe in balancing the interests of employees and trade unions and employers in workplaces. That is what the Fair Work Act is all about. That is why Work Choices was so wrong, because there is a pendulum in industrial relations between the interests of employees and employers and it is the job of government to keep that pendulum in the centre. The Liberal Party thought its job in government was to grab that pendulum and put it all the way up for employers, so employers could have everything they wanted and working people got smashed time after time after time. In relation to other industrial action, let me make it very clear in case the Leader of the Opposition has not heard these things from the government. The government were critical of statements that people should not fly on Qantas. We were critical of those statements. They were wrong and they should never have been made. Of course they were the wrong statements. We did say consistently, publicly and privately, to the industrial parties, and the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport has been clear about the role he played in this— Mr Ewen Jones interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Herbert is warned! Ms GILLARD: we did say to them that they needed to get this dispute fixed in the interests of the nation. Every step of the way we have shown the appropriate balance between the interests of working people and the interests of the employer. And, of course, when we moved on Saturday we were motivated by keeping balance in industrial relations, by making sure we were doing what we needed to do to protect the national economy and in the interests of members of the travelling public who were stranded miles and miles away from work or home, where they needed to get to. Contrast that with the approach of the Leader of the Opposition. He is always on the radio full of words of criticism about militant unions, but we see an employer lock its workforce out, we see planes grounded around the country with basically no notice to members of the travelling public—we see an employer take that extreme action—and the Leader of the Opposition cannot bring himself to utter one word of criticism of Qantas. Well, we know why that is. It is Liberal Party philosophy, it is fused into their DNA, it is what built Work Choices—and that is, if they ever need to look at a situation in a workplace their only question is: 'How much can I do to help the boss, what can I do to hurt the workers?' That is all they ever have believed in and all they ever will believe in.