Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Is the minister aware of union members giving misleading campaign material opposing the government’s workplace reforms out in the workplaces, at community events and, most worryingly, to schoolchildren? What is the minister’s response?

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 Lindsay for her question. In answering it, I note that the unemployment rate in Lindsay, in the western suburbs of Sydney, has fallen from 7.3 per cent when the Howard government was elected to just 4.3 per cent today. In answer to the question of the honourable member for Lindsay, yes, I am aware of, in particular, teachers in New South Wales schools who have been providing political campaign material to young students to act as a postbox for their parents. This anti-Work-Choices pamphlet which has been distributed in schools in New South Wales by the teachers union is clearly inappropriate material to be given to children as young as kindergarten and grade 1 through to grade 6.

What we have here is a blatant example of the unions in New South Wales seeking to politicise the school system in New South Wales by providing this material to children as young as prep in schools in New South Wales. It is this sort of behaviour by the teachers union in New South Wales which is part of the reason the Prime Minister said this week that parents are increasingly voting with their feet and moving from the public school system into the independent school system.

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

The member for Sydney has already been warned. She continues to interject. She will remove herself under standing order 94(a).

The member for Sydney then left the chamber.

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

Imagine the outcry if I sent a letter to schools in New South Wales to be distributed to school students in which it outlined all the lies which Unions NSW had been uttering about Work Choices. There would be complete outrage from the other side in this place if that were to happen. The New South Wales Minister for Education and Training, Carmel Tebbutt, may not know what Australia Day is, but can I say to her that this sort of activity is inappropriate on any day in schools in New South Wales. It is totally inappropriate.

Tomorrow, teachers across Australia will in some cases close schools down so that they can attend, during a school day, rallies in relation to the anti-Work-Choices campaign by the unions in this country. I say: if the teachers and the union in Australia believe that this campaign is so important, why don’t they do it on a day on which they do not have to close down schools in this country? The use of young students as a postal service to their parents is outrageous behaviour on the part of unions in New South Wales. They have been caught out once again peddling untruthful statements about Work Choices, and parents in New South Wales will once again be concerned about this radical influence in the New South Wales teachers union as such, to engage in outrageous behaviour such as this. I call upon the Leader of the Opposition. He should stand up here at this dispatch box and condemn this sort of behaviour on the part of unions in New South Wales and the teachers union in particular.

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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Isn’t it the case that, under the government’s industrial relations legislation, award conditions like penalty rates, shift and overtime loadings, allowances, annual leave loadings, public holidays and incentive based payments and bonuses cannot be guaranteed and can be removed from AWAs without the need for any compensation?

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

The Leader of the Opposition’s question reminds me of a phrase I have used in recent months: my guarantee is my record.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Oh, they do not like that! They do not like that because, as each month goes by, the evidence steadily mounts that the scare campaign of the Australian Labor Party has been proved wrong. It is now 29 November and Work Choices came into operation on, I think, 27 March 2006, so we are now eight months into Work Choices. We have 200,000 more jobs. We have the lowest level of industrial disputes since before World War I. We have real wages continuing to rise.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

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

Not World War II and not the Korean War but World War I.

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

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order which goes to relevance. I asked a very specific question, which was that penalty rates and all those other conditions cannot be—

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

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. I am listening to the Prime Minister. He is in order.

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

I was asked about guarantees and I am talking about guarantees. The reality of delivery is the greatest guarantee you can have. There were all sorts of guarantees in the workplace legislation of this country when the Leader of the Opposition was employment minister, but that did not guarantee that unemployment did not go to over one million Australians. The only way you can guarantee jobs for Australians, falling unemployment and rising real wages is to run a strong economy. One of the ways you run a strong economy is to have pro-productivity industrial laws.

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

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order of relevance. The answer is babbling and it is irrelevant. Why will he not answer a very simple question?

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

The Leader of the Opposition will come to his point of order, not debate it. The Prime Minister was asked a question about employment and the Prime Minister is answering the question.

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

I simply say to the Leader of the Opposition that he made all of these allegations when the legislation was brought in. He said wages would be driven down. He said unemployment would go up. He said strikes would break out. The Leader of the Opposition has been wrong, wrong, wrong about all of those allegations and his interpretation of our laws is completely and totally without foundation.