Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also addressed to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister advise the House how Australian workers are benefiting from reforms to Australia’s workplace relations system? How do these developments compare to the predictions made before the system began operating?

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

I thank the member for La Trobe. I am very happy to say that the Fair Pay Commission has been true to its name. It has been fair to the workers of Australia. Work Choices has been fair to the workers of Australia, and the increase of more than $27 a week that was brought down by the commission last Thursday represented the final nail in the coffin in relation to Labor’s attack on our Work Choices legislation. They told us that there would be mass sackings. Since March 2006 we have had 205,000 more jobs. Instead of mass sackings we have had mass hirings.

They told us there would be rolling industrial disputes. The fact is that the latest figures from the ABS show us that industrial disputes in Australia are at the lowest level since records began to be kept. Now, this is a result of a number of things, including Work Choices. Of course the greatest lie of all that came from the Labor Party and the union movement was that Work Choices was going to drive down wages. The Labor Party know a lot about driving down wages. When they were in government real wages actually fell. Since we have been in government real wages have risen by 16.4 per cent.

Of course, they derided Professor Harper’s commission. They call it the ‘low pay commission’, and I notice that the putative leader of the Labor Party, the national secretary of the AWU, is running around attacking the integrity of this independent body. Well, the Fair Pay Commission did the right thing. They did the fair thing by the workers of Australia, and that represents the final repudiation of this ludicrous, dishonest attack that has been made by the Labor Party and the union movement.

They were wrong on employment, they were wrong on industrial disputes and they have been totally wrong on pay. I can say to the workers of Australia, ‘Your future is safe with the coalition.’