Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Marshall, I take your interjection. You made two specific allegations against our workplace relations legislation. The first was that there would be a decrease in the number of jobs and the second was that there would be a cut in wages across this country for working men and women and their families. What has happened since Work Choices came in? I can tell you: the exact opposite has happened. Labor senators know that. They have not admitted their mistake and they have not apologised to the Australian people for making that mistake. They know that the number of jobs has gone up. Real wages have increased 16.5 per cent in the last 10 years, where of course under 13 years of Labor they went down—D-O-W-N—by 0.2 per cent in real terms.

I would like to thank the Senate committee of which Senator Marshall is a member, the Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education. They had a look at these two bills and delivered their report. As a member of that committee under the chairmanship of Senator Judith Troeth, I want to note what the government senators’ report says in summary about the legislation before us today. It says:

This legislation delivers on a 2004 election pledge,—

which I have just indicated is correct—

in which the government promised to recognise the special status, and growing importance, of independent contractors, who constitute an increasing proportion of the workforce. ... parties which choose to enter independent contracting arrangements should not be prevented from doing so by laws which elevate industrial relations principles over commercial considerations.

This is the nub of it. The state Labor governments deem these independent contractors to be subject to their own industrial relations regime.