Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Stirling for his question, which is an important one because, once again this morning and today, we have heard more hysterical and misleading claims from the ACTU and the Labor Party about Work Choices. In fact, on radio this morning, Mr Greg Combet, the Secretary to the ACTU, claimed that a Melbourne company—and this was repeated in question time by the opposition—had sacked workers because of their union activities. Mr Combet went on to say that the company had restructured itself such that it had fewer than 100 employees. If this is what Mr Combet believes, and if this is the evidence that Mr Combet has before him, he would know as the Secretary to the ACTU that it is unlawful to sack someone for being a member of a union. Indeed, it is unlawful to sack someone for engagement in trade union activities. Not only that, Mr Combet would know that there are penalties in the Work Choices legislation for companies that seek to restructure themselves in the way in which Mr Combet claimed this morning. This shows that, by making these claims on radio, Mr Combet is once again engaging in irresponsible fearmongering on behalf of the union movement.

It is a bit like the member for Perth coming out and saying that four million Australian employees are at risk of being sacked. The reality is that Australians are sacked every day and have been since Federation. They were sacked last year; they will be in 20 years time. But also the reality is that, under the changes that this government has put in place, we have seen a substantial increase in employment in Australia—30-year lows of unemployment, real wages increasing by 16.8 per cent—and these changes are about growing employment opportunities for real Australians.

Indeed, this morning there was a report in the media from the Hudson recruiting group, which says that, according to a survey that it has carried out, 38 per cent of employers—that is almost four in 10 employers—are planning to increase their staffing levels in the months to June. But do we hear anything of this from the ACTU and the union movement? Nothing whatsoever. And, to give the lie to the campaign that the ACTU is running, on ABC radio this morning we heard from Zana Bytheway, the Executive Director of Job Watch, who was asked by the ABC presenter in Melbourne, Jon Faine, how many calls Job Watch had received regarding unfair dismissal over the past two days. The answer was half a dozen—half a dozen calls in two days. As Zana Bytheway said: ‘There has been no change in the actual rate of calls.’ And she said: ‘I can’t categorically say to you, “Look, suddenly we’ve been inundated.”’ So here is somebody who is the executive director of an agency, Job Watch, who receives this sort of call and says there has been no increase—

See this speech in context