Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to comment on a couple of the member for Riverina's comments. He said that Labor doesn't like mining and Labor doesn't like resources. 'Labor doesn't really like anything'—that's pretty much what he was getting at. We support miners in the Hunter and we support miners all around Australia. Whilst people want to buy our coal, we'll continue to supply them our coal; 93 per cent of the coal from the Hunter is exported out of this country, so it's not even used in our coal-fired power stations. As I said, whilst people want to buy our coal, we will always supply them our coal. Thank you to the hardworking miners all around Australia for what you do. You put your lives on the line every day to go to work and earn a good income to support your families. Thank you for all that you do.

I find it quite ironic that those opposite want to come in here and talk about productivity when the only thing they're productive at is pointing fingers. They had a decade in government and absolutely wasted it, with misguided priorities and missed opportunities. This failure did not contribute to a more productive country; that's for sure. It was those opposite who caused productivity to plummet. It was those opposite who oversaw the worst decade of productivity growth in more than half a century, and now it is those opposite who want to come in here and lecture us about productivity. Maybe they should stick to subjects that they know best, like colour coded spreadsheets, because boosting productivity is certainly not something that they are qualified to speak on.

The way that they view productivity and the way that we view productivity are two very different things. We believe that workers drive our country forward and that, if they are protected and paid properly, they are going to do the best they can in their workplaces. We value our workers and we know that it's because of them that our country is able to keep moving forward. But those opposite unfortunately see workers as pawns on a chessboard. They think workers are there to serve the business they work for and it's for the business to use them and treat them any way that they please. They want Australians to work longer for less because they don't care whether somebody works hard all week and is hardly be able to provide for their family.

But we look at things differently. That's why our budget was focused on making life better for everyday working people; it's by lifting these people up that we also lift productivity. We invested in people, new industries and better-functioning markets and in boosting competition, and the best example of boosting productivity is giving people opportunities that they have never had before.

In my electorate, hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been able to get a trade, something that will set them up and open countless doors for good employment for years to come. Many more people having a trade means one thing: more productivity in our economy. All of this is possible because of our fee-free TAFE policies and the fact that we are opening more fee-free TAFE places for construction workers, plumbers, chippies, boilermakers, fitters and mechanics—for so many different areas of trades that we need in the Hunter. Those opposite firmly believe that they could boost productivity by blocking wage rises, leaving workers struggling with the cost of living. They think that creating insecure jobs and unsafe working conditions will help productivity growth. We want secure jobs. We want people to have good, healthy and safe conditions at work. We want people to be paid properly for the job they do. Everyone should be able to go home at the end of a long, hard day and feel like it's worth it because they're able to properly provide for themselves and their families.

For 10 years, workers were neglected, and the results are clear. The coalition's report card on productivity has a big, fat F stamped on the front of it. They failed workers, they failed to increase productivity and they left us in a hole that we are working hard to get out of. It will take time to repair the damage to Australia's productivity growth that was done by the opposition's decade of neglect, but we know that a new approach is needed, an approach that puts workers at the centre of everything we do, and that's what we're delivering on. We've had a focus on helping business to be more productive, but we aren't doing it by neglecting workers, because, if we've learnt one thing from those opposite, it's that that approach definitely does not work. Instead, we have a solid pipeline for business investment, which is now above where it was during the mining boom, and our policies are helping to not only attract investment but to better absorb it and enable it. We want our country to be more productive and we are doing best we can to make sure that happens.

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