Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Given the global financial situation, what action will the government be taking to maintain Australia’s hard-earned reputation as a reliable trading partner in light of the first industrial disruption in the Pilbara in 16 years?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The industrial disputation around the country in large part occurs in the context of a range of disputes between companies and unions or those representing individual workers in workplaces. The details of each dispute are going to be localised to the circumstances in those businesses. The key thing for the future is to make sure that we get the balance in Australian workplace relations right. That is a balance between fairness and flexibility.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I notice that those opposite are beginning to jeer. Can I say this to those opposite: when you have softening employment and increasing unemployment around the world and therefore have softening employment and increasing unemployment prospectively in Australia, working families dealing with the reality of the workplace would not want the protections available to them under Work Choices, because Work Choices stripped away basic protections in the workplace. Those opposite received such a caning at the last election because working families believed, rightly, that the balance had been got wrong. What we know from the interjections of those opposite is that they remain the party of Work Choices. In their heart of hearts and their mind of minds, they still believe in Work Choices, despite political protestations to the contrary. Therefore, in the future, if they were to return to the treasury bench, Work Choices would be back.

I say this to those opposite: if working families concerned about employment in the future were given the opportunity of dealing with Work Choices on the one hand or a fair and balanced industrial relations system on the other, they would vote for a fair and balanced industrial relations system. They did at the last election. We are delivering on that for the future. It is the right thing for working families, who are facing real challenges ahead, and we need to make sure that they have every protection possible.