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

Let me say in reply to that question that the abolition of Australian workplace agreements would not only damage companies but also damage hundreds of thousands of hardworking Australians. The proposal of the Leader of the Opposition to do away with them is a direct frontal attack on aspirational Australia. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released statistics which show that non-managerial employees are five per cent better off on AWAs than on collective agreements.

I have been asked what do I say to a particular case. Let me say, rhetorically: what do critics of the government’s policy, including of the opposition, say to Mr Eddie Belcher, a worker referred to in the West Australian this morning? He had a firm message to the Leader of the Opposition about the roll back of his AWA. He said:

Just try and take them away.

The Australian newspaper reported a Queensland coalminer, Graeme Ware, as seeing:

... no reason to return to union influence in setting awards.

The article reported that Mr Ware, a worker at the Sedgman coal washing plant at Nebo, west of Mackay, works four days on and three days off and earns more than $100,000 a year. They are the sorts of people that the Labor Party wants to do down. They are the sorts of people that the Labor Party wants to take a stick to. They are the sorts of people that are responsible for this extraordinary growth in our resource sector. The Labor Party is happy all the time to say, ‘The only reason the country is doing well is that we have a resources boom.’ That is an incomplete, invalid proposition. It is a bit odd if you say: ‘The reason we are prosperous is that we have a resources boom. So what we, the Labor Party will do, is destroy the living conditions of those who are contributing to the resources boom.’ It is a very odd kind of argument.

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