Michael Ferguson (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to thank a number of my constituents for participating in the workings of this place. Recently, a number of petitions were given to me, containing the names, addresses and signatures of people expressing their concerns about the Work Choices legislation—legislation of which the Howard government and I have been strongly supportive.

Despite my best efforts to have the petition tabled in the usual fashion, staff at the Table Office advised me that the petition is worded in such a way that it does not meet the criteria agreed to by both sides of this House and so cannot be accepted. To be exact, I understand that the petition was deficient for several reasons: it ought to have been directed to members of the House, it should have contained a request for the House to take some kind of action and it should have been comprised of original signatures, not photocopies.

For these reasons, I have unfortunately been prevented from lodging the petition. Nonetheless, I would like to ensure that the concerns expressed by my electors are given serious treatment. So, in accordance with the standing orders which require me to seek leave from the opposition, I now seek leave to table the petition as a document.

Leave granted.

I thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the opposition for assisting me. The document I have just tabled expresses concern in several areas. I regret to say that in every case that an initiative within Work Choices is being referred to, the language used in the document distorts the actual situation. Time does not permit me tonight to go into every one in detail; however, I would like to give some examples and explanations. For example, the person who drafted the petition has claimed that Work Choices removes conditions from awards—a claim which is not correct. There is a claim that minimum wages are to be made lower—another incorrect claim. There is a claim that individual contracts are designed to reduce pay and conditions—again, I regret to say, another baseless claim, which has been refuted time and again.

I am just sorry that people in my community are often hearing so many voices. They hear from the federal government, the unions, their state Labor government, a few churches, business groups—and the list goes on. Unfortunately, many of these voices are making dramatically different claims about the intent and the actual practical outcomes of the Work Choices legislation. Can all of them be true? Can there be an element of truth in most of them? Can the union movement and the Labor opposition really be taken seriously when they claim that the Howard government is intent, as the national government, on ruining its own people’s lives?

Through all of these voices, people do deserve to know the truth. That should not be asking for too much. The fact is that the Labor Party and the unions are making much of their fabricated claim that our country will be worse off under these new laws. They grin from ear to ear, I find, at their success in recent months in raising alarm in the community. I say instead that they ought to be hanging their heads in shame for what can only be described in many cases—not all—as deliberately frightening people, I think, in the hope that those frightened people might change their vote. I suppose that is politics and, in the spirit of debate, we press on.

Under this government, the real wages of Australian workers have increased by 16.8 per cent compared to an increase of just 1.2 per cent under 13 years of the last Labor government. In the time of the Howard government, over 1.7 million new jobs have been created. Changes to our workplace relations system since 1996 have been an essential factor in this wages growth, in the strong economy, in the low interest rates and in the low unemployment rate that all of us in this wonderful country currently enjoy.

In closing, I would like to say that I am sincerely very grateful that members of the community have seen fit to contact me as their local federal member. Prior to my election and since then, I have always promised to stay close to my community and to remain responsive to it. I thank the House.

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