Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mallee for his question. It is a well-known statistic that during the course of the last 10 or so years Australia’s exports have increased from $99 billion to $177 billion. There have been record exports of beef, lamb, iron ore and coal—all exports and horticultural products coming from the member for Mallee’s electorate and coming out of regional Australia. That is the powerhouse of Australian exporting.

The coalition government have undertaken some significant industrial relations reforms in the 10 years since we have been in office, and none more important than the reforms of 10 years ago, particularly the waterfront reform that took place around that time. We were languishing in international competitiveness scales at an average of 17 lifts of 20-foot equivalent containers per hour on our waterfront. We were being told we could not do any better, that it was impossible to improve. This government had the backbone to take on the challenge of reforming the waterfront, and today that 17 lifts an hour has moved to 28 lifts an hour. It has been one of the most important reforms. It has improved the efficiency and competitiveness of Australia’s export industries.

Our other workplace reforms during our term of office have helped to generate new jobs. Our exporting industries generate one in four jobs in regional Australia and one in five jobs across Australia. Our workplace relations reforms have helped create 1.8 million new jobs in Australia. Last week unemployment fell to 4.9 per cent in Australia, which is something that the Labor Party, when they were in office, could only dream about, let alone ever achieve. Over the weekend, we saw a new-found policy dimension of the Leader of the Opposition. He is going to completely abolish Australian workplace agreements where, on average, people on workplace AWAs are earning more today than people on certified agreements do.

At the end of last year, I heard an interesting case in point. The Leader of the Opposition should listen to this, because this is the effect his policies are going to have on one of Australia’s major export industries. Earlier this year or late last year, I visited Hamersley Iron, run by Rio Tinto in the Pilbara. The entire workforce is on individual workplace agreements. Twenty years ago, the productivity in that industry was 10,000 tonnes of iron ore per full-time employee. Today it is 41,000 tonnes. That entire workforce is very happy with the arrangements they have today, which have been negotiated between the company and the individual employees—and the Leader of the Opposition wants to rip this up.

He has picked up a policy from the playbook of the former member for Werriwa. The former member for Werriwa went to Western Australia in 2004 and told the mining industry about it, and they were aghast. Now the Leader of the Opposition has picked up this policy, because his prospects of staying on as Leader of the Opposition are shortening—to put it mildly. He has picked up this policy of Mark Latham’s and he is showing a distinct lack of judgment, as he did in the lead-up to the 2004 election when he said that Mark Latham was ready to be Prime Minister.

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