Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. How do employees in my electorate of Moreton benefit from a modern and flexible workplace relations system? Are there any threats to the stronger economy which this is creating?

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

There is no doubt the member for Moreton’s electorate benefits from economic reform. That is why in 1996 the unemployment rate in his electorate was 6.4 per cent but today it is 3.8 per cent, and in Queensland, obviously, it is around 3.5 per cent, which is a remarkable low in unemployment. Our flexible and modern workplace relations system has helped to create more than two million jobs in Australia since 1996. More than 320,000 of those jobs have been created in the last 13 months; 85 per cent of those jobs are full time and real wage growth has been around 20 per cent since we came to government in 1996.

There is no doubt that one of the areas where we have seen a significant increase in jobs is small business. Small business, without the removal of the Labor Party’s job-destroying unfair dismissal laws, was scared to employ people who had been out of the workplace for a very long period of time. Those most disadvantaged were women and young people who did not have a recent employment history. So when we removed the job-destroying unfair dismissal laws, small business had the confidence to take a risk and employ people who had no immediate employment history.

It is also the case that the Labor Party’s policies represent a threat to the economy. They represent a threat to the economy because the Labor Party seems to be quite hypocritical about what it says and what it does. The Labor Party’s industrial relations policy guaranteed 24 months for a parent to take parental leave and yet the member for Rankin let the cat out of the bag when he said, ‘In fact, it’s 12 months and if an employer says no, well bad luck.’ That is not a guarantee.

This illustrates a pattern of behaviour: what the Labor Party say in their policy and then the backflips they undertake afterwards. Of course, the first reversal in industrial relations was when the Labor Party said they would have a one-stop shop. Then they forgot that they needed judicial powers and it became a two-stop shop. Now we have found that it has to have a building industry commission, so it is a three-stop shop. They forgot the minimum wage—reversal No. 2. They had 10 minimum standards but they forgot the minimum wage. Then when it came to bargaining fees—this is a cracker—the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said this on Neil Mitchell’s program. Neil Mitchell said:

... bargaining fees are banned at the moment ... under your system they wouldn’t be banned, they’d be there for negotiation. Is that a fair comment?

And Gillard said yes. Well, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has now put out a press release saying that the Labor Party are going to support us banning bargaining fees—despite their policy having a different view. So they are all over the shop even on AWAs when it came to one day. We had on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald ‘Rudd ready to backflip on AWAs’ and on the same day on the front page of the Financial Review ‘Rudd holds hard line on IR reforms’—the same day but two different views. So we think that the general public is confused about the Labor Party’s industrial relations agenda. We are confused about the Labor Party’s industrial relations agenda. But you know who else is confused about the Labor Party’s industrial relations agenda? Our old friend Kevin Reynolds. We saw Kevin on the front of the Australian on Saturday having a ham and cheese croissant and a cafe latte, looking over the Swan River, longing for the day when the Leader of the Opposition becomes Prime Minister and he can go into every workplace and every construction site in Western Australia and let the bosses know that he is their new friend. I have read the transcript of Kevin Reynolds on The World Today, and he says this:

... the way Julia Gillard is backpedalling on a whole number of issues we’ll have to wait and see what the final outcome of the Labor Party’s industrial relations policy will be.

So Kevin Reynolds says Julia Gillard is back-pedalling on a whole number of issues. All the commentary from the newspapers, from radio interviews and from television says the Labor Party policy is confused—and yet they think they are ready to govern the country. Well, you cannot govern the country if you cannot get economic policy right. Good economic policy comes about because of hard decisions that are made not in the interests of the union bosses but in the interests of the workers of Australia.