Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There’s nobody around here talking about putting in French or German legislation. My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister seen a copy of the Way Ahead, the newsletter of the Gosford branch of the Liberal Party? Isn’t this newsletter produced by Councillor Malcolm Brooks, a former Liberal Party member of parliament and Liberal Party official? Is the Prime Minister aware of this issue? The newsletter says:

Many Australians who voted for and supported John Howard over the last decade are now cutting loose over the industrial reforms, and voters who voted for us at the last election have already decided to vote Labor at the next election. If this trend continues we will have no-one but ourselves to blame.

Prime Minister, if Liberal Party officials do not think slashing wages and conditions is a good idea, what hope have you got of convincing middle Australia?

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

Order! In calling the Prime Minister, the first part of that question was clearly a party matter and out of order. The Prime Minister may choose to answer the last part.

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

I will answer the Leader of the Opposition when he asks me what hope have I got of convincing middle Australia. Let me use a phrase that one or two of you have heard before: my guarantee is my record.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Order! The level of interjections is far too high. The Prime Minister will be heard.

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

The Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues can interrupt, can point to the gallery and can quote from pamphlets and the views of individuals, but nothing can gainsay the facts. The fact is that the unemployed are better off under this government than they have been for 30 years. The fact is that last week we had an unemployment rate that was at a record 30-year low. The fact is that real wages have risen under this government by 16.8 per cent. The real fact is that over the last 10 years we have created 1.8 million new jobs in this economy. The Leader of the Opposition started his question to me by saying he did not want anything to do with France and Germany. If he does not want anything to do with France or Germany he should not embrace the policies that have delivered a 30 per cent youth unemployment rate in France and that have also left the German economy with an unemployment rate of around 10 or 11 per cent. The undeniable fact is that those economies that deregulate their labour markets generate greater productivity and reduce unemployment. Those economies and those countries that continue to regulate, to suffocate and to stultify their labour markets produce higher levels of unemployment and lower levels of economic growth.

That is why a courageously successful Labour leader, like Tony Blair, when he became Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1997, had the courage to face the trade union movement of that country and say that their old ways had to change, that they had to accept the labour market reforms of the Thatcher era and they had to accept that the days of sandwiches and beer at No. 10 to solve industrial disputes were forever behind them. What a contrast: the courage of Tony Blair addressing the TUC in May 1997, acquainting them with the realities of the modern world, and the Leader of the Opposition meekly rolling over in the Sydney Town Hall last Sunday. The contrast could not have been starker with a leader prepared if necessary to disagree with those in his own ranks in the national interest. Successful Labor leaders—indeed, successful leaders on occasions—have to disagree with those in their own ranks if they know that in so doing they are matching the national interest.

The man who sits opposite me, and would be the Prime Minister of this country, has failed the national interest. He has allowed himself to be bullied by the union bosses of Australia and he has disqualified himself not only in the eyes of people who traditionally vote Liberal but, I reckon, in the eyes of many of these miners in Western Australia, who probably come from lifelong Labor Party backgrounds. Person after person in the mining industry of this country, brought up in the labour movement, is turning their back on the labour movement because the labour movement no longer represents the hopes and the dreams of aspirational Australia.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Plibersek interjecting

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

Order! The member for Sydney is warned!

David Jull (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: I wonder if you could, for the benefit of people here, say how many people on this side and how many on that side have been warned today.

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

The member for Grayndler would be well aware that questions to the chair are raised after question time.

David Jull (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once again, my question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Are there any intentions to change or vary the new workplace relations legislation by the government or, indeed, others? Has the government been able to establish at this early stage major advantages to workers resulting directly from the reforms?

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fadden for his question and his interest in workplace reform in Australia. The record shows that workplace reform over the last decade, and the flexibility that that has brought to the labour market, has indeed strengthened the Australian economy to the benefit of all Australians. The record quite clearly speaks for itself: the 30-year-low unemployment rate in Australia of 4.9 per cent, the 1.8 million extra jobs that have been created in the last decade and the 16.8 per cent increase in real wages. Ongoing reform is part of the move to strengthen the economy significantly and importantly to create more jobs for Australians so that more and more of our fellow men and women can share in the national prosperity.

The member for Fadden asked me whether there were any proposals for change. Indeed, there are. We have the Leader of the Opposition adopting a Mark Latham economic stance on policy, wanting to take us back to the pre-Keating reform era. Why is this? Simply because the unions are demanding that they do so. The unions are right about one thing. They have realised what other Australians have realised and that is that the Leader of the Opposition when it comes to public policy is weak. He does not have the spine to stand up to them. He buckles under, as he did at the weekend at the New South Wales Labor conference, no matter how extreme the proposals and the demands from the unions are.

Having buckled under once, what are the other demands that we are now getting from the union movement insofar as the workplace is concerned? First of all, they have demanded that AWAs go. He buckled under to that and in the process hung out to dry some hundreds of thousands of Australian workers. On top of that, we now have Mr Combet, the Secretary of the ACTU, demanding compulsory collective bargaining in Australia. That would mean that you would have the union involved in every negotiation at the workplace—something the Prime Minister quoted the workers in Western Australia as being opposed to. We have on top of that Bill Shorten, the next great hope of the Australian Labor Party, demanding that non-union workers be slugged with compulsory union bargaining agents fees. That is code for compulsory unionism in Australia.

But that is not the end of it. Let us look at the other demands. These are the sorts of demands that Mark Latham caved into, and we can see the new Leader of the Opposition caving into them as well. They want to squeeze the casual and part-time labour market in Australia dry. They want to whack small and medium sized businesses by reimposing the unfair dismissal regime. They want to give unions automatic right of entry into more workplaces and they want to allow secondary union boycotts and industry-wide strikes. The list goes on and on. This weakness from the Leader of the Opposition has led in the last couple of days to increasing demands from the unions as to what the Labor Party should do in their policy.

What was found with respect to this policy when the previous Leader of the Opposition, Mr Latham, was there? Access Economics had a look at the Labor Party’s policy with all these changes in it. This is what they concluded. It would diminish the capacity of business to create jobs for older people, for young Australians and for women; it would have a significant impact on manufacturing, on retail, on farming and on the mining industry in Australia; it would lessen productivity; and it would put pressure on unemployment. Here we have a repeat from the Leader of the Opposition. He is now adopting the economically irresponsible policies of the previous Leader of the Opposition which would take the Australian economy backwards by allowing the unions to dictate an extreme workplace relations policy. This would involve the unions in Australia having a seat at the cabinet table, should the Leader of the Opposition ever be elected to the prime ministership of this country. It would take Australia backwards, it would destroy employment, it would push unemployment up and it would diminish the prosperity of this nation.

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I again refer the Prime Minister to the Way Ahead, the Gosford Liberal Party newsletter, which is dedicated to God, Queen, country and family. It reads in part:

The threat to weekends, public holidays, overtime and penalty payments needs to be—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would refer you to the House of Representatives Practice, where it is very clearly spelt out that questions may not be asked about party political matters. The question once again is clearly out of order.

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

I am listening closely to the member for Perth and I will hear his question before I rule.

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry, Infrastructure and Industrial Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer the Prime Minister to the Gosford newsletter, which reads in part:

The threat to weekends, public holidays, overtime and penalty payments needs to be answered. Where is the protection for existing wages and conditions? It’s no good telling workers that this or that situation in the future will not happen. Everyone wants guarantees that it won’t happen.

Why has the Prime Minister failed to respond to his own party’s demand for a decent no-disadvantage test that will stop conditions and take-home pay being slashed?

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

In reply to the member for Perth, if the remarks attributed to that person are accurate, let me say through him to that person that I think he is wrong, just as the member for Perth was wrong 10 years ago when he said the world would come to an end with our industrial relations reform and just as the then member for Canberra spoke on behalf of the Labor Party when that legislation came back in its amended form from the Senate in November 1996 and he posed three questions. Will unemployment fall? Answer: yes. Will the nation be more productive? Yes. Will industrial disputes go up or go down? In fact, they have gone down. Indeed, the latest figures show that for the March quarter of 2006 we have recorded fewer industrial disputes than in any quarter since we began to collect these statistics. That is a pretty interesting figure. If there is one thing about the Labor Party that I remember from the dim, distant past when they occasionally talked sense on these issues, it is that they said, ‘If you want to reduce industrial disputes, elect a Labor government.’ The truth is that unemployment has gone down, wages have gone up, prosperity and productivity have increased and industrial disputes have fallen.

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hatton interjecting

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

Order! The member for Blaxland is warned.

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

All of that has happened over the last 10 years, despite the dire warnings of many in the community, particularly the Labor Party. Just as the dire warnings were wrong then, they are wrong now. I would predict that in 10 years time, when questions come up in this House, the spokesman who will be answering on behalf of the government of the day will be able to point to the productive benefits of the industrial relations policies of this government.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Martin Ferguson interjecting

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

I am glad that the member for Batman is enjoying what I am saying because it is true, Martin, and you should enjoy it.