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 to the Prime Minister. I refer to his answer to my previous question on the relationship between his party’s commitment to family values, so-called, and the content of his industrial relations legislation. Prime Minister, are you saying to the parliament that the legislation that you have introduced on industrial relations will have zero impact on a family’s ability to plan to spend time together on weekends? Prime Minister, is it not a fact that this government’s industrial relations legislation represents a triumph of market values over family values, which is why the Catholic Church has come out and so roundly criticised this legislation from the beginning?

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

Mr Speaker, I will tell you what I am saying the policies of this government do in relation to families. The policies of this government have strengthened families. I will get specifically to Work Choices, but the greatest beneficiaries of the government’s economic policies over the last 10½ years have been low- and middle-income Australian families. That has been demonstrated not by Liberal Party analysis; it has been demonstrated by NATSEM and by independent economic analysts. Time and time again analysis has shown that the family tax benefits system has been of enormous, incalculable value to low- and middle-income Australian families, the very people to whom the Leader of the Opposition is referring. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to—in your words—tell the parliament what this government has done for Australian families.

This government has also enabled Australian families to enjoy the lowest levels of unemployment in the last 30 years. The Leader of the Opposition asked me about the impact of Work Choices. The impact of Work Choices on family working arrangements is beneficial because it has introduced more flexibility. It has allowed Australian families to more adequately mould their requirements and their experiences around the needs of their workplace. In a spirit of reconciliation, I say to the Leader of the Opposition, who tries to contrast market values and family values, that we should not see these things as working against each other; in fact, we should see these things as working in tandem because, unless you have a strong economy, you do not have strong families. A very successful Labor leader had the courage to get his party to alter its historic relationship with the trade union movement as a precursor to winning office. I say to the Leader of the Opposition: until a leader of the Australian Labor Party has the courage to break the domination of the Labor Party by the Australian trade union movement, it will get further and further out of step with the aspirations of modern Australia.