Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Prime Minister. Prime Minister, if today’s productivity growth is tomorrow’s prosperity, why has Australian productivity failed to grow in any real respect for two years?

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

The productivity growth that this country has experienced over the past few years is a product of earlier reforms. One of the reasons that we are reforming industrial relations is to deliver further productivity reform. If the Leader of the Opposition is really committed to lifting productivity, he will alter Labor’s backward-looking industrial relations policy. It is fascinating that the Leader of the Opposition has asked me about productivity, because at the core of productivity gains in the future is providing further flexibility for the Australian labour market. That is why we have brought in Work Choices. Yet the Leader of the Opposition, having been told to do so by Sharan Burrow an hour and a half earlier, has recommitted the Australian Labor Party to repealing Work Choices. If Work Choices is repealed, one thing is certain: the productivity gains that this country could otherwise have will be denied to it. It is true that tomorrow’s prosperity is a product of today’s reform. Today’s reform needed to deliver tomorrow’s productivity is in part Work Choices. If the Leader of the Opposition wants prosperity tomorrow, he will take the opportunity given to him today of reversing Labor’s opposition to Work Choices, embracing the reforms in Work Choices and, thereby, laying the groundwork for further increases in productivity.