Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, it has fallen, Senator Marshall, to a 30-year low of 4.6 per cent, and wages have risen strongly. The Australian Fair Pay Commission increased the minimum wage by $27 a week. The ABS labour price index publication reported that total rates of pay, excluding bonuses, increased by 1.1 per cent in the June quarter of 2006 and by 4.1 per cent over the year to the June quarter. Strikes and industrial disputation fell to a record low in the June 2006 quarter—just over 3.1 working days lost per thousand employees. That is the lowest quarterly rate of disputes ever recorded by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

But, of course, in an attempt to gain public support for their political campaign, the opposition leader and the union movement continue to make misleading and hysterical claims that Australia is changed forever—fertility rates will decline; divorce will increase; children will not be able to go on holidays; weekends will be lost; BBQs will be gone; families will be set against families; and friends will be set against friends. Seven months into the operation of Work Choices, this doomsaying from the Labor Party has been exposed for what it is, and that is pure hysteria.