Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

Can I indicate that I am not personally aware of the comments, but I will take a punt and accept them at face value only because it is Senator Bishop asserting it. If it were some of his other colleagues, I would not be as confident in accepting their comments at face value. Even if we were to accept that the President of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission made those comments, it remains to be seen whether or not that assertion is proven.

Of course, what we on this side have had to tolerate, year after year—indeed, for a full decade now—is that each time we have come in with a reform—be it the goods and services tax, the waterfront reform, our first tranche of industrial relations changes or the first sale of Telstra—no matter what our reform program, it has been met by a chorus of doom and gloom from a whole host of people, some of whom are very well informed but all of whom, I must say, have been proven to be incorrect.

We as a government have presided over a decade of seeing the low-income earners of this country enjoying increased wages to an extent unparalleled under the previous 13 years of the Labor government. Given that, I pose this question: why on earth would we as a government, having this wonderful record over the past decade, all of a sudden say: ‘Well, let’s try and lower the wages—after having increased them for a decade, let’s try and decrease them’?

It does not make sense, it is not on our agenda and, if there is one thing that the Prime Minister can be very proud of, it is the way that he has looked after the battlers of this country. That is why in common parlance today they are referred to as Howard’s battlers—because he is the one to look after them.