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

For most Australians, sharing in the prosperity of the economy starts with the chance of a job. Something that a successful Labour leader—not of this country, but the Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain—told his comrades in the Trades Union Congress when he first spoke to them was that fairness starts with the chance of a job.

What we have not heard, either in the remarks this afternoon from the member for Perth or in the questions in question time today or yesterday, is that, as Spotlight have advised, they have created over the last few weeks something like 90 to 95 new jobs for their stores in Australia. Indeed, some 40 or so new jobs, I understand from information provided by or through the company, have been created with the opening of a new store in the western suburbs of Sydney—some 40 new jobs. Beyond that, I am told that the overwhelming majority of people who have been provided a job by Spotlight with the opening of this new store in the western suburbs of Sydney were previously unemployed. Let us put this in the context of what that means for somebody who is unemployed in Australia today. If you are unemployed, your gross weekly income—your benefit from Newstart—is $205.30. An unemployed person offered a job under the Spotlight AWA, which is being referred to by the member for Perth, would receive $543.40 per week—$205.30 on Newstart or $543.40 on the AWA referred to by the member for Perth.

Yesterday the member for Perth held up 2c. Let me demonstrate graphically, using real money, what that means to a person who goes from Newstart to a wage under this AWA. It is not $50, it is not $100, it is not $150, it is not $200, it is not $220, it is not $240, it is not $260, it is not $280, it is not $300, it is not $320, it is not $330, it is not $335, it is not $338; it is $338.10 extra. By comparison that is the extra amount that an unemployed person currently receiving $205.30 on Newstart would have at the end of the week. Those real people who are unemployed in the western suburbs of Sydney and will now get a job from Spotlight as a result of the opening of the new store and the provision of jobs will be a total of $338.10 a week better off. We see the member for Perth floating around and holding up 2c in this place, but $338.10 of real money will be in their pockets to provide for themselves and their families if they have them.

Not only do they have $338.10 extra as a result of having a job; they have the chance to get another job and get on in life. What the data, the statistics, the research and the records overwhelmingly show is that, when somebody gets a job, it is a stepping stone to another job. It used to be called, as I recall the former Leader of the Opposition saying, the ‘first rung on the ladder of opportunity’. In the Labor Party it seems that that ladder of opportunity has gone the way that the former leader went. That is the reality and that is the comparison.

These people in Western Sydney who did not have a job, were surviving on $205.30 per week and are now taking home a gross income of $543.40 per week, are getting more than double the amount they would have received on Newstart. In fact, it will be more than double even when you take the tax out. That is the comparison which the Labor Party does not want to address in this debate at all.

Implicit in the argument by the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Perth is that a person is better off remaining on Newstart and taking home $205 of government benefits than having a job at $543 a week and being able to do more for themselves and their families with that additional money. That is the implicit argument which is being run by the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Perth. I say to members of this House and to anybody listening to this broadcast that that is not the position of this government. This government believes that in giving more people jobs in this country, and in particular a number of people who did not have jobs, Spotlight is doing a much better thing—and that is sharing in the prosperity of this country.

We hear rhetoric from the other side about sharing in the prosperity of this country when they are not concerned enough to actually do something to create jobs, particularly for young Australians who are still unemployed. That is not sharing in the prosperity of this country at all. As Tony Blair said to the Trades Union Congress when he became the Prime Minister of Great Britain: ‘Fairness starts with the chance of a job.’ That is something which we fundamentally believe on this side of the House. The opposition do not believe that—they do not believe that fairness starts with the chance of a job. Well, we do and we will continue to propound that to the people of Australia.

In addition to the fact that these people now have a job, there are protections in the legislation for these jobs. There are protections in the Australian fair pay and conditions standard, which says that the safety net wage, which was established by the Industrial Relations Commission last year, is a starting point below which somebody cannot go. Also, you have to be accorded four weeks of annual leave in the written agreement, whether it is an individual Australian workplace agreement or a collective agreement. That has to be in the agreement. There also have to be provisions relating to personal leave, carers leave and sick leave. All of these things are protections in the agreement. Further, the ordinary 38-hour week prevails under the protections in the Australian fair pay and conditions standard. On top of that, the Australian Fair Pay Commission has the ability—and we will address this issue in spring this year—to actually increase minimum wages in Australia.

I remind members on the other side that the current economic climate which we enjoy in Australia came about because of the reforms that were undertaken in the past. They objected to these reforms in language and rhetoric very similar to that which they use in objecting to Work Choices now. Because of those reforms we are enjoying a prosperous economy, and, in those circumstances, one could expect that the Fair Pay Commission would increase the minimum wage so that workers can continue to share in Australia’s prosperity.

But what has sharing in the prosperity meant for Australians over the last decade? First of all, it has meant that something like 1.7 million extra jobs have been created in Australia—1.7 million of our fellow Australians have jobs today that they did not have when we came to government in 1996. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition was the Minister for Employment, Education and Training in the Hawke-Keating government. To paraphrase him, he said that this was the job that least interested him and that he had less passion for than anything else. It is no wonder when, under his regime, unemployment generally was at over eight per cent. It reached double figures in the ‘recession we had to have’ as a result of prescriptive labour market regulation in Australia, amongst other things. We are a far cry from that. We have 1.7 million extra jobs in this country, partly as a consequence of good economic management and partly as a consequence of the preparedness of this government to make significant ongoing reform to the economy to address the challenges of the future.

Had we stood where we were in 1996 and accepted the rhetoric and the argument of the opposition against the Workplace Relations Act, would we be where we are today? No. A study by Access Economics indicated that, if we had not made those reforms, the unemployment rate in Australia today would be closer to eight per cent rather than five per cent. Something like 300,000 of our fellow Australians would not have the job they have today had we listened to the rhetoric which was coming from the opposition back in 1996—the same rhetoric that we are getting today against Work Choices.

Sharing in prosperity has meant a chance of a job for 1.7 million Australians that they did not have back in 1996. Not only do they have a job but they are being paid more for those jobs. Let us again put this in historical context. Throughout the 13 years of  Labor government, the Hawke-Keating governments, real wages in this country increased by about 1.2 to 1.3 per cent. Through the 1980s, as a result of the accord between the ACTU and the then Labor government in Australia, real wages went backwards. In fact the only time since I think the end of the Second World War—I might stand corrected—that real wages have gone backwards in Australia was when we had a Labor government deal with the unions to drive those wages down. That 1.2 or 1.3 per cent increase in real wages through the 13 years of the Hawke and Keating governments is contrasted to a 16.8 per cent increase in real wages in the last 10 years. There is hardly a comparison between a one per cent and a 16 per cent increase in real wages. If we are talking about sharing in prosperity, which was the rhetoric of the member for Perth, not only have we got 1.7 million extra jobs in Australia but we have also seen an almost 17 per cent increase in real wages for Australians.

Thirdly, in terms of sharing in prosperity, many more Australians are in work rather than being on the unemployment queues. What was the unemployment rate when we came to government? Something like eight per cent. In some electorates my colleagues here could point to there were much higher rates of unemployment than that eight per cent. What is it nationally today? About five per cent. If you go to the member for Perth’s state of Western Australia, the unemployment rate is 3.8 per cent. By any modern definition, that is close to if not full employment. I was in Western Australia last week and at every meeting and function where I spoke to business owners and operators they were saying, ‘Where can we find the workers to do the jobs to continue the prosperity of this economy?’

Part of the prosperity which has been enjoyed by workers in Western Australia includes the fact that many of them have taken up the advantages of Australian workplace agreements and have got the extra pay which comes with those agreements. Australian workplace agreements on average pay people something like 13 per cent more than people on collective agreements. They pay people something like 100 per cent more on average than people who are employed under awards. In the Leader of the Opposition’s electorate there have been 18,471 Australia workplace agreements entered into since 1996—almost 20,000 Australian workplace agreements just in the electorate of the Leader of the Opposition. In the electorate of the previous speaker, the member for Perth, there has been 10,391 Australian workplace agreements since 1996. In those two electorates alone, out of the 150 electorates in Australia, we have seen almost 30,000 Australian workplace agreements entered into. Why, on 30,000 occasions, have people entered into Australian workplace agreements? They have entered into them because of the advantage to them and their families of entering into those agreements.

It is just like the unemployed person in Western Sydney who has been given the chance of a job, who says, ‘Yes, I am prepared to take the job because I am better off earning $540 rather than $205 a week.’ Yes, this is about money. It is about real money. It is about that $338 which someone who is unemployed can be better off by each week because they have taken an Australian workplace agreement. But we have sneering about that from the opposition, just like when the member for Lilley told us last year that $600 was not real money. I can assure the opposition that $338 extra in your pocket is real money to many Australians.

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