Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here is a really good news story: additional money being appropriated by this parliament for a program that has exceeded even the government’s expectations in its success. What do we get from the party that represents union bosses? Just criticism. If anyone was listening to the former speaker, I urge them to take with a very great deal of caution the statistics which he threw about. Some of the statistics used by the previous speaker just do not stand warranty. I know my colleague Senator McGauran, who will be participating in the debate later, will give some facts about that. I will give some facts from my experience at the new ATC in Townsville, which indicate that the previous speaker’s conclusions and figures are simply figments of his imagination and of the imagination of the party that represents union bosses in this parliament.

Senator George Campbell mentioned that $240 million had been slashed from the training budget when this government took office. I would not concede that that is correct, but there were many government programs that were looked at very carefully when this government came to power. Why was that so? Because this government had to find something in the order of $10 billion to fill up a black hole that the Labor Party had created and kept secret from the Australian public. This opposition represented union bosses in the previous parliament and, in a very skilful way, hid from the parliament and from the Australian public the fact that there was a $10 billion black hole in the budget. When a new government came to power, the first thing we had to do was fix that $10 billion black hole. That required some pruning and some careful consideration of some of the wasteful programs that had been adopted by the previous Labor government, and we had to save that money to get the books back in order. Once we had fixed up the $10 billion black hole of the previous government, we then had to address the $96 billion of borrowings by the previous government which were taking Australia down.

Senator George Campbell mentioned that vacancies for skilled labour have increased by six per cent in recent times. I am sure that statistic is correct, but why is it so? It is because the Australian economy is experiencing unprecedented growth that does not come just by a quirk of nature. It comes by the very careful management by this government and by our Treasurer, Peter Costello, over 10 years. Our government has done an enormous amount of difficult work to get our economy where it is. The economy is where it is at the moment because of the skill of Liberal and National Party governments and because of the work of the Treasurer, Mr Costello, and of the whole government.

We are experiencing very significant positives at this time. Of course there are vacancies in the skills area; there are vacancies everywhere, which is quite unlike the last time that the Labor Party was in power. Senator George Campbell at that time was a union heavyweight—a man whom, if I recall correctly, even the former Labor Prime Minister described as having the jobs of 100,000 fellow Australians on his conscience. Senator Campbell now has the hide to criticise our government for the vacancies we have created—for the enormous number of jobs we have created—in the past 10 years. When Labor left office, the unemployment rate was around 12 per cent. It had been in that order for most of the time of the Labor administration—for most of those hard 13 years.

It was a Labor administration that had a history of claiming to look after the workers of our country. Twelve per cent of the workers of our country found themselves without jobs during the time of the Labor government. It became quite clear that the previous Labor government was not a government for workers; it was a government for union bosses and for all the rorts and privileges that the unions and their bosses achieved for themselves at that time. It is no criticism but simply a statement of fact that if you look in this chamber, for example, a good 80 per cent of those who sit opposite have come to this chamber through the union movement as union bosses, as people who have taken advantage of union fees to get their places here.