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

I think Glenn Stevens is a first-class Reserve Bank governor, and he has spoken a great deal of common sense in the testimony he has made. He certainly understands more about productivity than the Leader of the Opposition does. I have had the opportunity to look at a report released overnight by the OECD. This report has something very interesting to say about two subjects of great interest to the Leader of the Opposition—namely, productivity and labour market regulation. I listened to the Leader of the Opposition very carefully, in an interview with Fran Kelly on the ABC Radio National program this morning, and he seemed to be arguing a number of things. One of the things he was arguing was that Labor Party policy would make our workplaces more productive. That is what he was arguing—that we really need to wind back the industrial relations clock so that we can wind our productivity forward. The problem with that is that it was blown out of the water overnight by none other than the OECD. In table 2.1 of the report, when it spoke of the possible links between labour market policy and productivity, it had this to say:

Strict statutory or contractual employment protection for regular workers impedes flexibility and slows the movement of labour resources into new high productivity activities.

What that means is that if you bring back the unfair dismissal laws, you will deliver a very serious blow—

See this speech in context