Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Wrong, as Senator McGauran says. I will come to that in a minute. The second allegation was that there would be drastic wage cuts. The third allegation was that there would be an enormous escalation in strikes, industrial action and disputation. The very welcome first anniversary of the introduction of Work Choices gives the lie to every one of those claims. They have been shown to be demonstrably false. They are nothing more than a cheap—intellectually cheap, because certainly financially they have not been cheap; there has been a massive expenditure campaign by the trade unions on the scare campaign—scare campaign by the Labor Party.

Of course, this replicates the false scare campaign that Labor ran against the first round of the Howard government’s workplace relations reforms back in 1996-97. Those reforms were demonstrated to be beneficial. The scare campaign run against them at the time has been shown over the years to be demonstrably false, as indeed was the scare campaign the Labor Party ran against the Howard government’s tax reform and the introduction of the goods and services tax. This shows us that all the Labor Party are capable of is false scare campaigns. It again reinforces that they are a policy-lazy party.

The facts give lie to this particular scare campaign. Let us have a look at the facts. The evidence shows that the new workplace relations laws are indeed working in the interests of Australian workers. Among that evidence is the fact that since the introduction of Work Choices 12 months ago there have been more than 263,700 jobs created, and 87 per cent of those new jobs have been full-time jobs. Over the previous decade there were very creditable improvements in job creation under the Howard government but a substantial number of those—almost half—over that period were part-time jobs. It was about a fifty-fifty split between full time and part time. But in the last 12 months 87 per cent of the new jobs have been full-time jobs. As an adjunct to that, many of those who were previously employed as casuals are now being given permanent positions—again, as a direct result of the Work Choices reforms.

The unemployment rate remains at a 30-year low of 4.6 per cent, and teenage full-time unemployment has also significantly declined. Our unemployment is the lowest it has been in 30 years, and this compares with the current average of the OECD countries of 5.8 per cent. Australia has an unemployment rate of 4.6 per cent; the average rate of unemployment for OECD countries is 5.8 per cent. What better demonstrates the benefits of Work Choices than that figure?

This fall in unemployment has been achieved notwithstanding an increase in the participation rate. Quite often when the participation rate increases—that is, more people are seeking jobs—the unemployment rate rises. In this case the participation rate has risen to a near record 64.9 per cent and yet unemployment has also fallen. That is because of the strong incentives that people now have to employ—our strong economy combined with the benefits of Work Choices. Real wages have grown by 1.5 per cent. This real increase in just one year is greater than the real increase in workers’ wages over the whole 13 years that the previous Labor government was in office. What better demonstration do you want of the efficacy of Work Choices?

The third allegation that Labor made about industrial disputes again has not been borne out. We have near record low levels of industrial disputation. Work Choices has delivered the goods for Australian workers, as did our first round of workplace relations reforms in 1996-97, and indeed as have all of the other Howard government economic reforms. Back in 1996 when we came to office unemployment was 8.2 per cent and indeed had peaked at 10.9 per cent under Labor in December 1992. Since 1996 two million jobs have been created. (Time expired)