Rod Sawford (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer and Acting Prime Minister. I again refer to the Spotlight AWA, which pays a rate of 2c an hour above the current award rate of pay but which provides that Saturday work is paid at the ordinary rate of pay, not time and a quarter as under the award; Sunday work is paid at the ordinary rate of pay, not time and a half as under the award; and there is no public holiday pay rate or loading. Does the Acting Prime Minister believe it is appropriate that the government’s legislation enables these conditions to be sold down the river for a princely sum of 2c an hour?

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before calling the Acting Prime Minister I will say that that question went very close to asking for an opinion, but I see that the Acting Prime Minister is willing to answer it so I will give him the option.

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Long experience in this place has told me not to rely on an assertion or an allegation from a member of the Labor Party, and I do not accept whatever proposition or allegation that he puts forward. If he legitimately believes that an agreement has been entered into which undercuts the Australian fair pay and conditions standards, he could report that. But, of course, he does not decide to do that.

Employees in Australia at the moment are in the strongest position they have been in for 30 years because we have had 1.7 million new jobs. They have the highest wages that we have ever had in Australian history, because under this government wages have gone up by 16 per cent. The only thing that could represent a threat to either your job or a wage increase in Australia would be the re-election of the Labor Party. The Labor Party loved the unemployed so much that it created hundreds of thousands of new ones! I say to people: in a growing economy with a better industrial relations system, their opportunities will be much greater.