Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

The former speaker, Senator Carol Brown, is absolutely right: industrial relations reform is a very serious matter and ought to be scrutinised. Its results ought to be looked at, because this deals with the working life and living standards of every worker and their family. We are happy to open up this industrial relations package, as we have with previous reforms, to scrutiny. You conveniently come in here and avoid putting the former industrial relations reforms to the test. The results are in. You know they are. You skirt around it with your exaggerated stories, with your misrepresentations. You are simply scavenging around for a single case, an exception, putting a bit of spin on it, putting a bit of exaggeration on it and misrepresenting it, hoping that it will prove your point.

But the point has already been proved when it comes to choices for workers. They have the choice to accept the collective system, with union representation—which has not been ruled out—or the choice to take up individual Australian workplace agreements. Those choices have been in place since 1996. What are the results? The results are that we have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years or more. The results are that we have real wage increases of some 16.8 per cent. The results are that long-term unemployment—and that is a great test—has come down. Time does not permit me to read the figures on long-term unemployment, but it would be lost on no-one here that when you start digging into the statistics on people who have been unemployed for 12 months to two years you see that they are finding jobs. You know that the system really is working.

On top of that, some 1.7 million jobs have been created in 10 years. They are new jobs. That is the result of the first tranche of our industrial relations reforms—and you came in here and said the sky was going to fall in. When those reforms were tested down at the waterfront, you said it could not be done. Look at the waterfront. Has anyone heard of any strikes happening down at the waterfront lately? Have you noticed that the rates for lifting containers by crane are at world record levels? They are averaging 28 per hour and 42 on a good day in Melbourne. They are the results. They are in.