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

I had thought that I could respond to Senator Murray. The advice is that about 85 per cent of workers are under the Work Choices legislation. That is my advice from the department. Therefore, about 15 per cent are not. I was quite confident, but then you asked a further question about the division between each of the states. Believe it or not, I do not carry that figure in my back pocket with me. I will accept Senator Murray’s chastisement that possibly it is not appropriate to claim that all the jobs that have been created since Work Choices are as a result of Work Choices. I accept that point. However, I would ask the Australian people to consider this: why did the unemployment rate in this country hover between five per cent and 5.3 per cent for well over 18 months—it was for about 20 months—and we could never break the five per cent unemployment barrier? Work Choices came in, and we are now down to 4.6 per cent. I invite people to ask what changed since 27 March 2006 such that we have seen that huge spike in employment other than the new environment in which employment now operates under—namely, the Work Choices legislation.

In my assessment, the overwhelming reason for the huge spike in employment—the huge decrease in unemployment—was the removal of the unfair unfair dismissal laws, because, as soon as employers felt confident that they could dismiss an employee who was not performing, guess what? They were a lot more willing to employ. As a result, whilst I will not claim this for all 200,000 people who have got jobs since Work Choices came into being, I have a funny hunch that a fairly substantial proportion of them have got employment as a result of our reforms.