Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowper for his question. The member for Cowper, since being elected to this place, has taken a great deal of interest in how to improve the circumstances of the unemployed in his electorate. The unemployment level in Cowper under Labor got up to 17.8 per cent. It was just outrageous in that part of the mid North Coast. But since then, under the policies of the coalition government, it has come down to 7.9 per cent.

The member for Cowper is working very hard to get it even lower with creative ways to find people opportunities in the workplace. One of those—and it was very strongly supported by the member for Cowper—was our Work Choices policy, particularly getting rid of the unfair dismissal laws that Laurie Brereton introduced back in the nineties. If there is anything that has assisted the small businesses and the people that work in those small businesses in the seat of Cowper, it is getting rid of those unfair dismissal laws and the burden that they placed on small businesses in that electorate.

The record shows that, since Work Choices was introduced, there are 263,000 new jobs in the economy, many of those in the small business sector. We now see unemployment at a 30-year low, and wages growth has reached a level of 19.8 per cent. Most importantly, we have witnessed the lowest levels of industrial disputes on record during the term of the coalition government. Our policies have certainly unshackled regional economies to do what they do best: generate economic growth and wealth in their areas and therefore generate employment opportunities for young people in regional Australia. It is critically important that we do not go backwards on this reform agenda, that we continue to go forwards.

The Prime Minister mentioned a while ago the battle that we had to have, particularly with the union movement and the Labor Party, to reform the waterfront. They told us you could not achieve anything better than 16.9 crane lifts per hour. They said, ‘This is world’s best practice and we’re doing it in Australia.’ Since those reforms have been introduced, they are now doing 27 lifts an hour. It is the single most important reform and has made us much more competitive in the international marketplace as far as our exporters are concerned.

When those reforms were introduced—and you can look around the ranks of the Labor Party on the other side of this place—we remember that the President of the ACTU who opposed those was the member for Throsby—

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