Madam Speaker, the general strike began when the employer took a clearly provocative action defying long-established conventions around workplace conditions and hours of work. There is not a lot of evidence that the government felt there was any sense of urgency there, or picked up the phone to ask why the employer was doing this and making the situation worse. I mean, it is the least that the government could have done.
Meanwhile, this is the kind of action that one would expect an employer who knew that a government was willing to step in with back-to-work legislation might undertake in order to get the government to act and end negotiations with legislation. This just has stink written all over it in terms of the way the government has intervened.
There was a question earlier that did not get answered, about whom the government informed when. When did it inform either party as to its readiness to bring in back-to-work legislation? I would like a clear answer from the minister on which sides in the negotiations knew that the government was prepared to introduce this kind of legislation and when they knew it.