Tony Smith (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister update the House on the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics release on industrial disputes? How do these results compare with previous results and are there any proposals which would threaten these results?

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

I thank the member for Casey for asking me a question about industrial disputes on a day on which the families of Australia, via the latest employment figures, have been given a wonderful Christmas present. I can say, as I lead into the answer, that we have maintained our 30-year low in unemployment and that almost 200,000 jobs have been created since the introduction of Work Choices. I can tell the member for Casey that today’s ABS data on industrial disputes reports the lowest results ever recorded of industrial disputation in this nation. In the September quarter the ABS recorded industrial disputes at 2.3 working days lost per thousand employees. The June quarter, which had also been a record low, was recorded at 3.2 working days lost per thousand. This compares to the last full quarter under the opposition’s system of 43 working days lost per thousand employees—43 versus 2.3. That is a 92 per cent reduction in industrial disputes since Labor and the unions’ system of industrial relations was changed by Peter Reith and this government in 1996. Labor’s record dispute quarter came in December 1992. Despite the anaemic state of the labour market and the still very high level of unemployment in 1992, the figure was 104.6 working days lost per thousand employees.

But if you drill down you find that the most interesting figure was the absolutely stunning result in the building and construction sector, a sector which an earlier Cole royal commission found to be plagued by thuggery and intimidation. The House will be fascinated with these figures. The industrial dispute figure for the building industry in the September quarter of 2005—that was the last quarter prior to the introduction of the building industry laws—was 37.4 working days lost per thousand employees. That was September of last year, before the new laws in the construction industry came into effect. Today’s release for September of this year showed only 1.6 working days lost per thousand employees in the building and construction industry.

So in a year, as a result of our reforms, which the Labor Party fought every inch of the way, we have gone in the building and construction industry from 37.4 working days lost per thousand to 1.6. That is a stunning result and it is a direct consequence of the laws we changed. We have not only decimated the number of industrial disputes but reduced the cost of building and construction. I say to the opposition that, in light of all of this, it is economic lunacy to propose rolling back those laws, yet the unions tell you you must and you will, just as it is economic lunacy to propose rolling back the Work Choices laws which so far in seven months have seen almost 200,000 more Australians put in work and 200,000 happier Australian families this Christmas.