John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to that is no. The situation is, as I said last year—and the government was totally open about it when the legislation was brought forward—that, with matters relating to penalty rates, if somebody is covered by an award, the award provision obtains. If somebody is not covered by an award, it must be specifically addressed. In the absence of it being specifically addressed then the default provision applies, and that default provision represents the terms and conditions that are in the award.

The Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues can ask, as they undoubtedly will, as many questions as they choose on this issue and indeed on any other issue. But nothing can alter the fact that, when we changed the workplace relations laws 10 years ago, they said unemployment would go up, wages would go down, people would be humiliated, people would be sacked, their lives would be destroyed, their families would be destitute, their marriages would break down, they would resort to violence against their friends, they would become unsociable and they would become enemies of society. Ten years on, do we have those situations in Australia? No. Ten years on, we have real wages that have gone up by 16 per cent, versus a lousy 1.3 per cent under the former government. We have seen unemployment at a 30-year low, and we have seen international economic bodies say that the wages and remuneration of production workers in this country compared with the rest of the world are second to none.

I have said it before and I will say it again: my guarantee to the workers of Australia is my record. My record over the last 10 years is of service to the workers of Australia, service that the Labor Party could only dream of giving to those men and women of our country.

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