Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is also addressed to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister outline to the House how labour market reform has helped to strengthen our economy? Is the Prime Minister aware of campaigns to undermine these reforms, and what is the government’s response?

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

I thank the member for La Trobe for his question. Let me note, in thanking the member for La Trobe, that in March 1996 unemployment in La Trobe was 6.2 per cent. I am now happy to report it is only 3.4 per cent. One of the reasons unemployment in La Trobe is lower is that this government has reformed Australia’s industrial relations system. One of the reasons unemployment in La Trobe would go up if a Labor government were elected at the end of this year is that the Labor Party, under pressure from the union movement, would destroy the industrial relations reforms of the last 11 years.

What is really at stake when you talk about industrial relations in this country is the maintenance of a 33-year low in unemployment. If you go through the last 11 years and look at the three episodes of industrial relations reform—in 1996, in 1998 with the waterfront and again in 2006—all of those reforms contributed enormously to reducing Australia’s unemployment level. We now have the lowest unemployment rate in 33 years. We have seen real wages rise by 20.8 per cent since 1996, compared to a reduction of 1.8 per cent when the unions last ran Australia under the Hawke and Keating Labor governments.

Incredibly enough, despite this record, and despite the fact that we now have fewer strikes in Australia than at any time since 1913—despite all those facts—the union movement is insisting that if Labor wins the next election then the industrial relations reforms that have contributed so much to reducing unemployment must be reversed. I cannot think of anything more calculated to damage the confidence of the small business sector of Australia, which employs so many people, than the determination of the Labor Party, at the behest of the union movement, to abolish the unfair dismissal changes that we brought in 15 months ago. Those unfair dismissal changes have literally emboldened small business to take on more staff. There can be no other explanation for the extraordinary statistic that tells us that, in the last year, the number of long-term unemployed in this country has fallen by 23 per cent, and the number of long-term unemployed—let me tell the Leader of the Opposition—is now at its lowest level since the statistic first began to be compiled more than 20 years ago. This is a result of small business knowing that it is free from the trauma of dealing with unreasonable, unfair dismissal laws.

But the union movement wants to change all of that. A document has come into my possession, which is euphemistically entitled Federal election 2007: union political strategy manual 6 steps. That is the description of it. The real description is: this is the dirty tricks manual which is designed—

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Crean interjecting

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

Oh, the sound effects man—he knows all about dirty tracks manuals produced by the union movement. He is right on cue—a former president of the ACTU. I wonder how many more of them we are going to hear from today. Mr Speaker, if you think I exaggerate and if you think I am being unfair to the trade union movement of Australia by calling this a dirty tracks manual, let me refer to page 46. This is a manual which is given to union activists who are going out and ringing up fellow unionists and knocking on their doors. Can you image the poor unionist in Western Australia who has got Kevin Reynolds knocking on his door—or Joe McDonald knocking or bashing the door down? Can you imagine how that person might feel? But if you think I am exaggerating any of this, on page 46 the instruction is given as to how to talk to your fellow unionists. After advising the union member—that is, the person doing the talking—to totally misrepresent the intent and the operation of the government’s law, there is a request at the bottom of this instruction that says—and listen very carefully to this:

Don’t Read Out (Minimum wage, 4 weeks annual leave ... 10 Sick/carer’s leave; 38 hour week; Unpaid parental leave)

In other words, what this manual does is to exhort the union canvassers to lie about the government’s policy. It warns the unions: ‘Don’t tell the truth about our policy, don’t tell the unionist that you are actually entitled to a guaranteed minimum wage, don’t talk about a 38-hour week, don’t talk about four weeks annual leave, don’t talk about sick leave or carers leave and don’t talk about parental leave, because the poor unionist might actually think that’s not a bad deal, so the last thing you want to do is to tell the truth about the government’s policy.’

This document is a dirty tricks manual, and it is calculated, through techniques of misrepresentation, push polling and the like, to achieve one purpose, and that is to install the Leader of the Opposition as Prime Minister. The union movement is not interested in workers; it is interested in power for union bosses, and this document, this manual, is all about achieving that objective, and the puppet along the way is going to be the Leader of the Opposition.