Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister advise the House how Australian workplaces are using choice to make arrangements which best suit their needs? Is the Prime Minister aware of proposals which would roll back this choice?

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

As I said in answer to a question without notice I was asked yesterday, choice is a golden thread that runs through the policies of the Liberal and National parties. It is not a golden thread that runs through either the policies or the practices of the Australian Labor Party, as we were reminded of in such an absurd fashion in South Australia at the weekend. Let me say in answer to the member for Blair that under Work Choices there is enormous choice available to Australian employers and employees. Let me illustrate this: since Work Choices began, over 400,000 people, in a little over six months, have entered into Work Choices agreements. Some of them are AWAs, some of them are non-union collective agreements and some of them are union collective agreements.

I regrettably have to inform the House that, if Labor were to win the next election, that choice would disappear. There would be two hammer blows struck against choice by a Labor government. The first is that, under Labor’s compulsory union collective bargaining policy, the choice for people to stand out and have AWAs would disappear.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

There are laughs from the frontbench of the opposition. Are they seriously disputing that it is the policy of the Labor Party to abolish Australian workplace agreements? It is the central pillar of the Australian Labor Party’s assault on the choice that now exists in the Australian workplace.

Above the compulsory union collective bargaining policy, if Labor are elected, they will also allow so-called union bargaining fees. This is where unions can insert clauses into collective agreements which force all non-union members to pay for the privilege of being covered by that agreement. This is compulsory unionism by stealth, and, if the Labor Party pretend that they are not in favour of this, let me remind them that prior to 30 June last year the government tried on numerous occasions, by presenting legislation to the parliament, to outlaw the imposition of bargaining fees, and that legislation was defeated by the then opposition majority in the Senate.

It is only since 30 June last year and the passage of Work Choices that we have been able to get off the statute books of this country any possibility of the introduction of bargaining fees. So, on two counts—the imposition of Labor’s policy of compulsory union collective bargaining and the introduction of union bargaining fees, which is compulsory unionism by stealth—you would see a marked reduction in choice available in Australian workplaces.

Let me end by saying this: it is the policy of the coalition that every Australian has the right to join a union without penalty or recrimination, and every Australian should have the right not to join a union without penalty or discrimination. We saw at the weekend the failure of Labor to enforce that principle. It showed that, if Labor wins, choice in the workplace will go, compulsory unionism will be back and Greg Combet’s dream of unions once again running Australia will become a reality for him and a nightmare for the nation.