Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I will continue my remarks about the lessons that the Labor Party has learned from the South Australian election and from our candidates being regularly out there talking to ordinary people at their doors. The lesson is that industrial relations is a big issue.

For example, one of our candidates doorknocked an ex-serviceman who is over 80. He had never before voted for the Labor Party. He had always voted Liberal. He was going to vote Labor for the first time in the next federal election because of the industrial relations changes. He said that they were not what he had fought for during the war. They were not what he fought for, because he fought for Australian values. He fought for a fair go for all Australians. He did not fight for a society where there is no equality between Australians from all walks of life. He wanted equality in Australian society.

He did not want the kind of society where people in workplaces are subject to the whim of their employer as to whether they stay on in their job or go. He did not fight for a society where individuals have to go cap in hand to the boss to argue that they have done a decent job and deserve decent pay. He believed in collective bargaining. He believed in a society where employees are not pitted against each other for pay and conditions in a race down to the bottom.

This is the kind of example we have from the Liberal Party—where people in workplaces are set against each other: is one employee more lazy than another? Is another employee not doing the job? Is another employee not sucking up to the boss properly? Can you get better pay and conditions at the expense of some other employee who might be sacked or put in a casual position? This is the kind of encouragement we have from the current Howard government. They want employees to fight against each other and to have the employer benefit from that through lower pay and conditions.

This is the kind of society that the Howard government want. Howard’s economy is in favour of big business and big employers and is out of touch with ordinary people. Ordinary people say that that is not the kind of economy they want. They want the kind of economy where there are protections for employees—where, if they choose, employees can go to their unions to bargain collectively and to get protection.