Stuart Henry (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister outline to the House how the government’s policies have kept the Australian economy strong? Is the Prime Minister aware of opposition to these policies and what is the government’s response?

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

In replying to the member for Hasluck, can I note that in March 1996 the unemployment rate in that part of Western Australia was 7.4 per cent. At the end of 2006 it had fallen to 3.5 per cent. That is a remarkable achievement. It has been more than cut in half in the 11 years that the government have been in office. Why has that happened? It has happened because we have followed strong and consistent policies in relation to the management of the economy and, notwithstanding the consistent opposition by the Labor Party to all of those policies, the implementation of them over the last decade has produced that wonderful employment outcome in the electorate of Hasluck.

Amongst the policies that we have strongly supported are policies giving a right of choice to Australian workers, policies that recognise—unlike the views of the member for Jagajaga—that having casual work is better than having no work at all and policies that have extolled the importance of choice in the workplace, the importance of independent contractors and the importance of small business. Our policies have been ones of consistent support for the small business sector, consistent support for contractors and consistent support for the value of casual work, as well as indeed part-time and full-time work.

On the subject of consistency, my attention has been drawn to articles successively yesterday and today on the front page of the Australian, which illustrate a certain degree of inconsistency on the other side of politics. Yesterday we had the rather breathless claim, no doubt briefed with authority, to Sid Marris of the Australian:

Labor will make improving the lot of individual contractors a priority in an industrial relations platform that declares that work arrangements should serve social as well as economic goals. The platform, Restoring the Balance in our Workplace, retains a solid pro-union agenda and is similar to that taken by Mark Latham to the 2004 election. But it is peppered with changes that federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd is expected to emphasise in the coming months. It re-embraces the desire of workers for part-time and casual employment and the integral role those jobs can play.

When I read that I thought, ‘This is very interesting. This is the Leader of the Opposition perhaps dragging his party into the 21st century and into the modern workplace.’ But my enthusiasm was dashed this morning when I picked up the Australian and this time, under the by-line of Steve Lewis as well as Sid Marris, it had this to say: ‘Rudd backs down on casuals.’ It said:

Labor has dumped explicit support for casual workers and contractors in a stripped-back draft platform as the Opposition struggles to contain union tensions over policy direction.

What has happened is that the policy released the day after that rather breathless briefing, which suggested that contractors and casual workers were going to get a place in the sun, has been dumped. The article carries the description ‘vanishing number’ and it repeats ‘the clause that has been removed’.

This clause was there yesterday; today it has disappeared. Yesterday’s clause said:

Greater attention needs to be given to the growing casualisation of the workforce, home-based work, the needs of independent contractors, and the increasing demand in balancing work with personal and family life.

I would have thought that any modern political party would want to have a clause like that in its platform. I think the question that everybody on this side of the House would like to ask is: which of the former ACTU presidents or currently serving senior officers of the ACTU told the Leader of the Opposition to take that clause out?