Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the question I asked on 13 September concerning an AWA offered to one of my constituents, Reynaldo Cortez, by Lipa Pharmaceuticals which reduces his take-home pay by $200 a week. Is the Prime Minister aware of comments made by Mr Cortez in the Campbelltown-Macarthur Advertiser on 20 September on the reasons he signed the AWA? He said:

I have five children and am the only one working because my wife is taking care of my kids. I felt sick ... I couldn’t sleep because of what’s going on ... I didn’t like to sign but what would happen to me [if I didn’t]?

Isn’t it the case that Mr Cortez’s choice was to either accept the job with reduced conditions and entitlements or not have the job? Isn’t this the Prime Minister’s real idea of choice—no choice except take it or leave it?

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

In answer to the member for Werriwa: I have not seen those remarks in the local newspaper to which you have referred. If you would like to send me a copy of the local newspaper I will see what further inquiries I can make. In relation to take it or leave it or choice, I remind the member for Werriwa that one million people in the early nineties had to take it or leave it. Despite the massive protections that the law purported to give them, the economy in the early nineties was so weak that more than a million people were thrown out of work and all the legislative protections under the sun did not save them. I think the member for Werriwa should understand that the real test of an industrial relations system is the contribution it makes to strengthening the economy. The evidence so far is that the sky has not fallen in. We have 175,000 more jobs. We still have very high real wage growth. We have the lowest number of industrial disputes since records were kept. I think most Australians would take that rather than leave it.