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 the government’s plans to keep the economy strong into the future? Is the Prime Minister aware of alternative plans which will put the future of the economy in jeopardy?

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

I might best answer that question from the member for Hasluck by asking him to come along at half past seven tonight to hear the Treasurer, who has been the principal architect within the government of our great economic prosperity, outline the plan on behalf of the government. But without in any way pre-empting my colleague, let me say that the sorts of policies that have brought us to a situation where we are now enjoying the longest unbroken economic expansion in Australia’s history are not things that have come by happenstance. There is a line being run by the opposition that the economy is something out there and it does not matter who runs it, it will keep going well—as if the economy were on autopilot. The truth is that the strong economy we now have is the result of decisions taken by this government over the last 11 years—difficult decisions, all of which, incidentally, have been opposed by the Australian Labor Party. The Australian Labor Party opposed us getting the budget into surplus, they opposed us paying off $96 billion of government debt, they opposed the first round of industrial relations reform, they opposed waterfront reform, they opposed taxation reform, they opposed the second round of industrial relations reform and they opposed the sale of Telstra—although they are now happy to use that as a launching pad for their own attempts to raid the Future Fund in the name of providing this country with broadband when, in reality, it is not the business of taxpayers to fund broadband; it should be a product of the proper operation of the market circumstances of our economy.

The member for Hasluck asked me if I am aware of any alternative policy. One alternative policy I am aware of—I think I am aware of it, because it keeps changing—is the industrial relations policy of the Leader of the Opposition. Isn’t it interesting? We now have a situation where the real extremists on industrial relations are the members of the Australian Labor Party. They are the people that would hand industrial relations in this country over to the union bosses. You can be certain of these things about Labor’s industrial relations policy: firstly, they will put union power ahead of workers’ jobs; secondly, they will bring back the job-destroying unfair dismissal laws; and, thirdly, they will hand over to an industrial relations system dominated by collective bargaining—a return of union power at a time when trade unions in this country are peopled by only 15 per cent of the private sector workforce. Only 15 per cent of the private sector workforce of this country now choose to belong to a trade union, yet the Labor Party want to give union power and union bosses 100 per cent control of our industrial relations system. Maybe that has got something to do with the fact that 60 to 70 per cent of the Labor Party frontbench are former union officials.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is again to the Prime Minister, and I refer to his previous answer on a properly informed economic policy. Was the Treasury secretary, Ken Henry, right when he said that the government’s policy outcomes in relation to water reform and climate change would have been far superior had Treasury’s views been more influential? Prime Minister, what institutional changes has the government made since this statement by Dr Henry to ensure that it is properly responding to the advice of the Department of the Treasury?

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

The answer is no.

Phillip Barresi (Deakin, 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 flexible workplace laws help keep the economy strong? Is the Prime Minister aware of any alternative policies that would damage the economy?

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

I can give an unequivocal response to the member for Deakin, who is doing a remarkable job as chairman of the government members task group on industrial relations reform, in saying that the hallmark of this government’s policies concerning workplace relations has been to produce greater stability. We have made three major changes to the industrial relations laws in the 11 years we have been in office: there were the Reith reforms of 1996, bitterly opposed by the Labor Party; there were the changes to the operation of Australia’s waterfront—we were told you could not possibly have any more than 17 or 18 crane movements of containers per hour, yet, as a result of the changes that have been introduced, we now have world’s best practice performance of something like 27 or 28 an hour; and then, of course, there have been the changes introduced by the government through the Work Choices legislation. All of these changes have improved the flexibility of the Australian economy.

The sad thing is that the alternative government of this country want to destroy that flexibility. They talk about fairness with flexibility or ‘forward with fairness and flexibility’, but the reality is that their policy would destroy that flexibility. Their policy would create a situation where, if 51 per cent of people in a workplace voted in favour of a collective agreement, the employer—the person who invests the money to employ the people and to start the business—would have no right to have a workplace agreement with any one of the remaining 49 per cent. They would introduce a system which says that, if you had 100 employees in a firm and 99 of them wanted to negotiate as a group with the employer, one person could say, ‘I want the union to represent me in the negotiation’—nothing wrong with that, no objection to that, no objection at all. But, under the other provisions of the policy, if there were not an agreement reached with the union representing that one person, it would then go off to this body called Fair Work Australia, where an arbitrated solution or outcome would be imposed on the employer and the 99 employees. I do not call that ‘forward with fairness and flexibility’; I call that backwards with inflexibility and unfairness—and that is a feature of the policy.

What is fascinating about this policy is that the Leader of the Opposition is not across the detail of it. Time and time again he was asked questions about the policy and he brushed them off. He said, ‘I have left all of that to the deputy leader; I am not quite across all the detail of it.’ My advice, through you, Mr Speaker, to the Leader of the Opposition is: you had better get across the detail of it very quickly, because when you are in the sort of position you occupy you should be across the detail of your policy. You should understand the implications it has for workers. You should understand that what you have done is to hand back the power of trade unions’ control over Australia’s industrial relations position.

The real story of Labor’s industrial relations saga is that the Leader of the Opposition was running around the business community saying, ‘Don’t worry, it will be all right: I will not be stood over by the trade unions.’ He goes along to his national conference, he hands it over to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, she goes off and does a deal with Greg Combet and, lo and behold, the business community comes out shaking its head and saying, ‘This is the same old Labor Party, the mob that always cave in to the union bosses.’

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to the Prime Minister’s answer to my previous question—a question which asked, ‘Was the Treasury secretary right when he said that the government’s policy outcomes in relation to water reform and climate change would have been far superior if the Treasury’s views had been more influential?’—and the Prime Minister’s answer to that question, which was no, he did not think that the Treasury secretary was right. Will the Prime Minister inform the House whether he believes that the following remarks from the Secretary to the Department of the Treasury are right as well, when he warned Treasury officers that:

Divisions will now be under pressure to respond to the growing number of policy proposals leading up to the calling of an election and once the election is called. At this time there is a greater than usual risk of the development of policy proposals that are frankly bad.

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

I can inform the House that between now and the caretaker period, whenever that may begin—and I have not the faintest idea, for the information of the Leader of the Opposition—there will be no bad policies from this government; and between the caretaker period and the election there will not be bad policies either, not from our side of politics. But I am already seeing a lot of bad policy from the other side.

To start with, we have an industrial relations policy which is an absolute dog’s breakfast for the Labor Party. I cannot believe it. They were running around telling Australians that we had an extreme industrial relations policy. They are the people with the extreme policy. It is the Australian Labor Party that wants to hand over workplaces not to workers or to employers; they want to hand over the control of workplaces to trade unions, which represent only 15 per cent of the private sector workforce.

I saw the Leader of the Opposition speaking in Brisbane. He was addressing a rally. That is fine; we all like addressing rallies—and I will not make any comment about that. But what he has to understand is that, when you have a business, somebody invests money in that business, and the somebody who invests the money actually takes the risk. I think there is something fundamentally unfair about an industrial relations policy that says that, if an employer wants to make an agreement with some of his employees of a certain kind, he will be prohibited by law from making that agreement. That is the consequence of what the Leader of the Opposition has proposed. Let me take him back again to his policy. I know he does not understand it, but let me tell him what his policy means.

Let me tell the Leader of the Opposition that, if you have a firm of 100 people and 51 per cent of those vote in favour of a collective agreement, it means that the man or the woman who started the business—who put up the capital, who took the risk, who borrowed the money and, in the case of a small business, probably mortgaged their house in order to secure the business overdraft—has no right to make an agreement with one of the other 49 people. I think that is outrageous and I think that is unfair. The fact that the Leader of the Opposition supports such a policy shows that he does not know anything about small business in this country. Not only will he support something like that; he will also support a situation where, on top of that, the employer will once again be burdened with the outrageous unfair dismissal laws, which create a situation where it becomes impossible to properly manage your business in certain circumstances. So I say to the Leader of the Opposition that if he is talking about bad policy I suggest he have a read of his own party’s policy on industrial relations.

Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House how the coalition government’s strong economic management has provided benefits to regional and rural Australia? What policies have the government pursued to specifically assist regional areas, including my electorate of Cowper? 

Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Cowper for his question. Obviously and self-evidently, the best thing that this government has done for regional Australia is that it has kept the Australian economy strong; got rid of debt; put ourselves in a position where we can continue to invest in infrastructure across Australia, particularly in regional Australia and in regional economies; and supported regional economies. A lot of the reforms that the Prime Minister mentioned earlier in question time have delivered us into a situation where the Australian economy is one of the strongest in the world, where there is downward pressure on interest rates, where unemployment is at a 30-year low and where we are experiencing the lowest level of industrial disputes on record—imagine that under a coalition government—where we continue to run budget surpluses and where we are net savers rather than net borrowers, as we used to be under previous Labor governments.

The member for Cowper asked about policies that benefit regional Australia. Of course, the coalition government has continued to work in partnership with regional communities to find answers to some of their problems and to assist them in addressing the questions they have about strengthening their economies. There have been a number of programs that we have been able to support and fund as a result of that strong economic management in Australia. We have been able to fund programs without having to borrow the money to do it, and we have been able to fund them out of surpluses. The Sustainable Regions Program is one and the Regional Partnerships Program is another. That is a great program for regional Australia, and I know that those members of the Labor Party that have been recipients of grants under Regional Partnerships in their electorates have welcomed them as well. In that program, since 2003 we have funded more than 1,266 projects worth more than $1.2 billion. Our contribution has been $278 million worth of taxpayers’ money, which has leveraged $1.2 billion worth of projects in regional Australia. That is $972 million in cash and in-kind contributions coming from those communities. Every $50,000 that we have invested in those communities has generated three new jobs. That is taxpayers’ money invested wisely in regional communities—generating new jobs in those communities.

That investment has seen a significant fall in unemployment in regional Australia. Sixty-four per cent of regional areas across Australia now have unemployment rates of less than five per cent. When Labor was last in power only 16 per cent of regional Australia had unemployment rates of less than five per cent. It is now 64 per cent under the coalition government because we have been targeting investment in those communities. We have been keeping the economy strong, investing in infrastructure in those communities and creating an environment where the private sector has been generating employment. Those targeted policies have worked.

We are watching a slow rollout of some policies from the Labor Party this year, but how are the Labor Party putting together their policies? There is one word to describe how the Labor Party are doing it: outsourcing. They are outsourcing their policy development. They have outsourced their industrial relations policy to the ACTU and we read in the paper they are going to outsource economic policy to the Democrats. They have outsourced their preselection process to the union movement, and now they are getting a bit of a backlash from their rank and file members about the preselection process. They have outsourced the defence of their industrial relations policy to the old head-kicker, Paul Keating. We want to see more of him on the television. We want to see more of Paul Keating defending Kevin Rudd’s policies in the media because that will help us a hell of a lot. The Labor Party have outsourced their policy development to the dinosaurs of the past. We will continue to develop our own policies in the interests of all Australians, in particular regional Australians, who have seen a significant improvement in their economic fortunes.

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

I remind the Deputy Prime Minister that he should refer to the Leader of the Opposition by his title.