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

I thank Senator Fifield for his important question, which recognises the value of Australian workplace agreements to our nation. Since Work Choices came into effect, a massive 175,000 new jobs, of which 128,000 are full time, have been created and wages have continued to rise. There are now over one million AWAs signed in this country. The simple fact is that AWAs encourage job creation because they give employees and employers the flexibility to agree to mutually acceptable working conditions, underpinned, of course, by a very strong safety net of minimum conditions. AWAs have contributed to real wages growth. Senator Fifield asked about indications of support for the continuance of AWAs. It is very apt that that question was asked by a Victorian senator—I will get to that later.

We all know that federal Labor’s policy is unambiguous—that is, to rip up AWAs. Mr Beazley has promised the people of Australia that he will abolish AWAs and the extra jobs and higher wages to which they have led. What is interesting, though, is that it is not just the workers and the employers who have engaged in AWAs who want to keep the system; it is also Mr Beazley’s state Labor colleagues. The Western Australian Labor Premier, Mr Carpenter, has already voiced his qualms about Mr Beazley’s foolhardy decision. Yesterday, the Victorian Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Hulls, declined not once, not twice, not even three times—at which time you would have thought a rooster might have started to crow—to agree with Mr Beazley’s policies. It was not four times or five times, and not even half-a-dozen times; Mr Hulls was given seven opportunities in an interview to agree to Mr Beazley’s policies. Seven times he denied himself the opportunity to say that he fully supports Mr Beazley’s policy. You would have thought that, after seven times, there would be a whole barnyard of roosters crowing over that. But, of course, the Labor Party was deadly silent.

What has happened here, and it is quite obvious, is that some Labor governments, when they are actually in government, are mugged by reality. That is why the Western Australian Labor government supports AWAs and that is why Mr Hulls from the Victorian Labor government was not willing to support Mr Beazley. That is the reason Mr Tony Blair, when he came to government in the UK, refused to rip up or roll back the reforms of Mrs Thatcher, and that is the reason Ms Helen Clark, the Labour Prime Minister of New Zealand, refused to rip up or roll back the reforms in New Zealand.

So what we can hope for is that reality will finally mug the Labor Party. Mr Beazley should know from his attempt in 1998 to surf into government on the back of a fear and scaremongering campaign that that does not work. What we need is good, sound policies from Labor. Until Mr Beazley comes up with alternative policies, as opposed to scaremongering, he is unfit to be the Prime Minister of this country.