Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I take the interjection, because I know a hell of a lot about it. One of my best friends happened to be head of the Australian Wool Corporation at the time and he said that we had a 20 per cent reduction in our demand. China and Russia were contemplating pulling out and it had a detrimental effect upon the market. We were arguing the merits of deregulation, and wool was the first case in Australia of a massive across-the-board deregulation of an industry. It is very important to look closely at what happened. What happened there was that China and Russia said they were pulling out of the market and the market went down, but at that point of time the minimum price scheme pulled it up. It was $8.90 a kilo. It was pulled back to that level, and it was at that level when Keating held his infamous press conference and indicated clearly that the government was not going to stand behind the scheme. Everyone assumed that the government was saying the price was going to go down. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy and the price went straight through the floor at a hundred miles an hour. I rang up Doug Anthony at the time and I said, ‘We are going to find it hard if we lose this.’ He said, ‘How far do you reckon the price will go down if you don’t keep the scheme or if it goes into freefall?’ I said, ‘30 per cent.’ He said: ‘Right, that’s $2 billion a year. How much is it going to cost you to give a loan to Russia and to China to buy that wool?’ I said, ‘A lot of money, $200 or $300 million, and it will go on for three years.’ He said, ‘How much is that?’ and I said, ‘I’ll say $900 million.’ He then said, ‘How much are you going to lose if you do not stand by the scheme?’ I said, ‘The price will drop at least 30 per cent.’ As it turned out, it dropped 50 per cent. He said, ‘How much is that?’ I said: ‘It’s $2,000 million a year for three years. It’s $6,000 million we’re going to lose.’ He said, ‘Right; now that you have got your mathematics right, go back and do the right thing in there.’

Deregulation is going to save the world! It sure would be nice if some other country on earth was participating in it. Mr Bush introduced the aluminium protection arrangements and he then introduced the steel protection arrangements. They are not doing it. The Europeans have a 51 per cent subsidy on agriculture. They are not doing it. Would anybody be naïve enough to think that Japan or China are doing it? Try and sell some beef to China. Good luck, son! Every other country sticks by their industries, and they are out there to win. We stand behind them. We are going to collectively operate here and aggressively operate here. But, no, Australia says, ‘We are going to deregulate,’ and the government stands aside and lets it all go. You will be massacred, and that is what is happening to us out there.

Returning to the legislation specifically, there are some good suggestions here, but I do not feel strongly enough about what the opposition is proposing to back those suggestions. As far as the government goes, whilst I am a very, very strong supporter and applauder of the government moving back to the direction of collective bargaining and allowing people to collectively bargain and protect themselves by way of collective arrangements in the labour market in Australia, uniformity of the legislation throughout Australia does not appeal to me. What is suitable for Sydney in uniformity of the legislation is not suitable for North Queensland—we are totally and fundamentally different. I would have great difficulty in backing the bills because they are bills about uniformity; they are not bills about IR. I have supported the government at all times on IR but I do not support the government in imposing uniformity all over Australia.

It is playing football without a referee. That is really what we are talking about with the arbitration commission. In actual fact the federal government has not restored the arbitration commission. That is wrong. We are still, in my opinion, playing without a referee. The only way you can get a referee now is if somebody gets a bloody nose. The only way you can get to the arbitration commission is if either party suffers substantial loss, which is basically a strike from the workers’ point of view or a lockout from the employer’s point of view. Short of that disruption and infliction of that sort of economic pain you cannot get into the arbitration commission.

Previously we would have a fight and then we would go to conciliation. If that would not fix it up, then we would go to arbitration, but we did not have to strike. And it is very, very hard to get anyone in Australia to go on strike these days. If the opposition is fearful of that, it is fear of the unknown—that is for certain. It just does not happen much in Australia these days because people are locked into time payment arrangements and they are not going to be able to strike.

It is a very sad day when the only way we can get collective bargaining between an employee and an employer is by way of serious strike action, serious lockout action or something along those lines. We are playing football and the only way now to have a referee is if you bloody somebody’s nose. That is the only way you are going to get access to arbitration, and that is not a way to run society.

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