Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

If the minister wants to make arguments about the participation rate he could get up in question time every day and say: ‘I acknowledge Work Choices does not create jobs. I acknowledge that businesses actually create jobs, and I’m now going to tell you about the participation rate.’ But of course that is not what the Howard government have been doing, is it? They have been trying to pretend these laws create jobs and they do not.

When you look at the pattern of employment growth, it is abundantly clear that it is the resources boom that is driving employment growth. It is the states of Queensland, Western Australian and the Northern Territory that are leaping ahead. Mining is showing annualised growth of 15 per cent. To use a well-known political catch cry: ‘It’s the resources boom, stupid!’—not the Howard government’s industrial relations laws—that is driving employment growth in this country.

Then they would have you believe that somehow these laws are doing something for productivity. But, once again, if you hold it up to the light of day, the truth is something very different. In the six months to September, after the introduction of the Work Choices laws, productivity went backwards by 1.6 per cent.

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