John Anderson (Gwydir, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also addressed to the Prime Minister. I ask: has the Prime Minister’s attention been drawn to concerns raised by Australian businesses on the proposed roll-back of flexibilities in the Australian labour market? What is the Prime Minister’s response to these concerns?

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

My attention has been drawn to concerns expressed by the business community of Australia. Last week the Mines and Minerals Association of Western Australia stated that removing Australian workplace agreements would cost the mining industry over $6 billion. Austral Ships, one of the absolutely premier examples of Australian inventiveness and capacity, which employs over 1,000 Australians in Western Australia, said last week:

This would not be here in Western Australia under a collective agreement. Our productivity would be nowhere near high enough. We would not be able to survive.

Michael Chaney, the Chairman of the Business Council of Australia, said that the policy announced by the Leader of the Opposition misses the fundamental point that AWAs have played a significant part in improving productivity. Today, the national body, the Minerals Council of Australia, in a news release called for Labor to reconsider the proposed workplace reforms because they are ‘ill-conceived and potentially detrimental to the long-term viability of the Australian minerals industry’. These are not the words of somebody uninterested in the great resource sector of Australia; these are the words of the Minerals Council of Australia. The Minerals Council’s companies produce more than 85 per cent of Australia’s annual minerals output.

Every time I see the member for Perth interviewed on the issue of industrial relations productivity, he says, ‘It is all due to the boom in the mining industry.’ Well, if it is all due to the boom in the mining industry, why is the Labor Party trying to lower the boom on the mining industry? Basically, that is what the Labor Party is trying to do—it is trying to lower the boom on the boom. That is a monumentally counterproductive thing to do for the future of this country. The Minerals Council went on to say—and these words could well echo the views of many on the Labor Party front bench, who regarded the announcement made last week by the Leader of the Opposition as a sell-out to some gangsters in Sydney:

The MCA is deeply concerned by the ALP’s proposal to abolish Australian workplace agreements, re-invigorate collective bargaining, strengthen the award system and reposition unions as an external third party in negotiating terms and conditions. The impressive transformation of the minerals sector over the last decade is in part due to flexible workplace laws transforming work practices, pay and conditions and productivity in the mining industry.

They are the words of an industry which is part of the great 21st century wealth of this country. They are words of advice that the Leader of the Opposition would do well to listen to and heed.

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

It also has something to do with enterprise bargaining.

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

Order! The Leader will come to his question.

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

I ask a question of the Prime Minister on this subject. I refer the Prime Minister to the concerns of George Liarakos, a small business owner and pharmacist from Melbourne, who is in the gallery today and who told Labor’s industrial relations task force that the government’s industrial relations laws are unfairly skewed against the interests of employees, prevent genuine bargaining and allow competitors to undercut the conditions of employment Mr Liarakos offers his employees, which will place him under considerable pressure to do the same. Will the Prime Minister guarantee that his legislation will not force Mr Liarakos, who wants to provide decent jobs with decent conditions, to join a wages race to the bottom just to stay competitive?

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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for that question. Let me give a guarantee. In addition to reminding the Australian people of my record, let me give this guarantee. I can guarantee that wages will always be higher, unemployment will always be lower, productivity will always be higher and growth will always be stronger under a coalition government than under a Labor government.