Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

You have had your say; I am having mine. Despite a scare campaign by Labor and by the union movement—as I say, everything in moderation—the Productivity Commission has shown itself to be economically robust and socially responsible. We talk about fairness and decency—it is socially responsible. Labor's argument shows that they and their union masters are more interested in playing politics than engaging in a genuine, evidence based conversation about how the Fair Work laws can best work for employees, employers and the Australian community as a whole. Going back a little bit to Senator Abetz's comments, I do think he was quoted out of context: he is not callous, as the member for Gorton asserted in his offering. As I say again, I do not think workers should be fired by text. I have been to the Brisbane ports and I have seen how well they operate. I do believe they can operate better with more workers.

The government's position on penalty rates has clearly and consistently been that penalty rates are a matter for the Fair Work Commission to determine, not government. The draft report concludes that penalty rates should continue to be set by the Fair Work Commission. That, I think, is fair enough. I am sure that members opposite would think that was fair enough too.

We have heard a lot about jobs. I listened very carefully to the member for Cowper—he always makes a good and common-sense contribution. I heard him talk about Labor's failings as far as the submarines were concerned—you never ordered one. It is all well and good to come in here to talk about all the things that we should be doing and could be doing, but you on the other side never ordered one submarine. Last week $39 billion worth of Navy frigates and corvettes were placed on order by the Prime Minister—he is doing a fantastic job. Just recently we had the agriculture minister produce the Agricultural Competitiveness white paper. I might point this out to Labor members, if you only read the contents that would be sufficient: a fairer go for farm businesses; building the infrastructure of the 21st century; strengthening our approach to drought risk management; farming smarter; and accessing premium markets. It is all about jobs.

When the Leader of the Opposition was employment minister, or workplace relations as it was called, he delivered only 3,600 jobs a month in his tenure in that portfolio. Just last month, 38,000 new jobs were created by the Liberal-Nationals government—that is getting on with the job of delivering the sort of economic rebuild that we need after six long and sorry years of Labor government. We are getting on with the job of building the economy. We do not want to put in a job-destroying, industry-wrecking carbon tax, as Labor will as soon as they get back in. We hope that does not happen. We are getting on with the job of creating economic certainty, building jobs for the future and infrastructure.

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