Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. I refer to the minister’s frequent assertions that workers—particularly women workers—are better off on Australian workplace agreements. I also refer to the fact that the Prime Minister said yesterday that nurses should be paid more. If the minister really believed that AWAs are so good, why wouldn’t the government be proud to tie future Commonwealth healthcare funding to the offering of AWAs?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is one way that the nurses could receive a pay rise tomorrow—that is, if the Leader of the Opposition picked up the phone to the premiers and asked his mates to give the nurses a pay rise. The nurses are employed by the state Labor governments in state hospitals. I make this observation. If the Labor Party really care about nurses, if the Labor Party really care about teachers—and they employ, through the state governments, those nurses and those teachers—I urge them to do the right thing and pay those hard workers more money.

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

My question is also to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister inform the House of the benefits of our workplace relations reforms, both social and economic. Are there any threats to those reforms?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly can, and I thank the member—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Gillard interjecting

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She’s annoying, isn’t she!

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It will be really embarrassing if you get this one wrong!

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

Order! The deputy leader is warned!

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She’s something else, isn’t she! I thank the member for Lindsay for her question. It was a good question I thought. I note that, since the introduction of Work Choices a year ago, the number of average hours Australians are working has come down by half an hour overall per week. I also recognise that wages have gone up by 1.5 per cent in real terms. I also note that 263,000 new jobs have been created. Nearly 90 per cent of those are full-time jobs and over 109,000 of those are for women, which is a great story. I also note that the level of industrial disputation is at its lowest point since records were first kept in 1913.

One of the great stories about the introduction of the laws a year ago is that it has encouraged employers who previously employed people as casuals to bring them onto AWAs and to give them some permanency in their workplace. The reason why they have been able to do that is that the AWA is a flexible instrument.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Macklin interjecting

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

The member for Jagajaga is warned!

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note today the decision by the Leader of the Opposition to stage a bit of a stunt at the national conference. ‘Rudd set for brawl with Left’. This happens regularly, doesn’t it? Am I missing something? This happens regularly. It is like that great scene out of Casablanca, where Captain Renault said at the end, ‘Roll up the usual suspects.’ Well, at every national conference the leader of the Labor Party rolls up the left—rolls over the top of them at a pretend, staged event—and says, ‘We’re strong, and we’re going to stand up to the union bosses.’ How extraordinary it is that the Labor Party has always been opposed to casualisation of the workforce and, at a time when we are moving people from casual labour into permanent part-time or full-time work, the Labor Party wants to wind back to the casualisation of the workforce. The Financial Review said today:

Given the concern expressed by the labour movement over the past two decades about “casualisation” of the workplace, you would think the unions and the Labor Party would be celebrating the record level of full-time jobs being created. Not a bit of it. Unions are running a desperate campaign of misinformation to shore up their power, and Labor is in lock-step,

Absolutely. The Labor Party is about the union bosses—the union bosses outside and the union bosses within the parliament. Only today I heard the Prime Minister on Radio National. Who did the Labor Party put up to be the spokesman on industrial relations for the Labor Party? It was not the Leader of the Opposition or the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Greg Combet was there to debate the Prime Minister on industrial relations. I then went onto Jon Faine’s program, in Melbourne. I was being interviewed and they said, ‘We have a spokesman for the other side.’ I asked: ‘Who’s that? Julia Gillard? Kevin Rudd?’ The answer was, ‘No, Greg Combet is the spokesman.’

So the Rudd-Gillard-Combet combo comes into play, which says that the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition do not control their own policy—Greg Combet does. That is why he wants to knock off the poor old member for Charlton. Stay here, don’t leave your seat! Greg Combet wants to knock off the member for Charlton. A union boss knocks off the poor old member for Corio. A union boss knocks off the poor old member for Maribyrnong. You have the union boss in Hotham, You have the union boss in Batman. Do not forget the union boss in Throsby; we cannot forget her! Dougie Cameron and all of them are coming in because they want to get rid of the monkeys. Just bring the organ grinder in. He is out there playing the tune on radio. He is debating us on industrial relations. Forget the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Just bring the organ grinder in.

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

Before calling the deputy leader, I would remind the minister that he should refer to members by their title or their seat.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations—that big bear of a man, which is the Prime Minister’s preferred term for describing him.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! The deputy leader has been called. The deputy leader will be heard.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Minister, isn’t it a fact that leading labour market economist Mark Wooden, a conservative economist, said:

... there’s not a lot of evidence that individual contracts produce productivity.

He continued:

... the biggest gains for productivity still revolve around a system which is collective based.

Will the minister table the statistical evidence that proves the government’s assertion that the government’s industrial relations laws have increased productivity? Will he table that evidence?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for the compliment. I would like to see more of you, too, Julia—I really would. I have not seen the comments from Mark Wooden. But I note that obviously one of the great success stories of the government is the massive infusion of long-term unemployed into the market. In particular, over the last few months we have seen a number of people who have remained out of the workforce coming into the workforce for the first time, sometimes after an absence of a decade or more. Those people are obviously low in skills. As they come in, they have low productivity. The more time that they spend in the workplace, the better their productivity will become.

On 1 July this year, through our Welfare to Work initiatives, we are going to create a work obligation for 233,000 people who are currently on a single or partnered parent pension so that they come into the market for the first time. That is because Australia is short of labour and we need to increase the number of people working to address some of the demographic challenges that Australia is facing today and into the future. This is very important. In 2007, Australia needs people to work if they have the capacity to work. And it is not some ideological drive from the government; it is a fact from an economic perspective. In 2007, if you have the capacity to work, we need you to work.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order to do with relevance. I did not ask the minister about the participation rate. His answer would have been appropriate to that.

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

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will resume her seat. The minister is certainly answering the question. He is relevant to the subject.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the participation rate increases and as low-skilled people come into the workplace for the first time in many years, that is going to have a downward impact on productivity numbers. That is a fact. The second fact is that the drought has had an impact on productivity over the last 12 months. That is beyond doubt as well. When you make significant economic change, you do it as the foundation for future growth—future growth in jobs and wages—based on productivity improvements. This will bring better wages for workers, fairer jobs for workers and job security for workers as well.