Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

That was another fire and brimstone performance from Senator Ronaldson, although there were some valid points in amongst the finger-pointing. I think that it is important to bring some balance back to the debate before the Senate today. Productivity is an important issue and for that reason it is understandable that the productivity implications of workplace relations have found their way into the debate, and I would like to follow on from Senator Ronaldson’s remarks in that area.

He has pointed to the criticism that any form of shift from the coalition’s extremist Work Choices legislation would somehow harm productivity. Yet last week we saw Mr Howard make some of those changes. I recall the last federal election and the workplace relations legislation that was in place up to 2005. At no stage did Mr Howard go around in the election campaign saying: ‘Our industrial relations legislation is far too constrained. It is harming our productivity. Business is not able to operate effectively under our workplace laws.’ Indeed, if I recall correctly, the government used to talk quite proudly about the positive impact of its workplace laws. These workplace laws, I remind the Senate and the community, were shaped and maintained in a balanced form by the Democrats. It was only because the coalition obtained control of the Senate that they were able to wipe out the Democrats’ workplace relations regime and put in place their own extreme measures.

Suddenly, when the ALP put forward a policy—one that does not even go back to 2004—there is an outcry. Labor’s policies only go part of the way. They have accepted part of Mr Howard’s unfair dismissal changes. They have accepted the secret ballot. If the Democrats had allowed the secret ballot through this place at any time in the previous 10 years we would have been ripped limb from limb by various senators here and people in the union movement for daring to support such a travesty. Yet Labor have adopted that. Now it appears that there are 11 allowable matters—down from the previous number. So Labor’s policy is actually far closer now to Mr Howard’s, in many respects, than Mr Howard’s own laws were in 2004. Yet we are expected to believe that any change back is going to destroy productivity and lead to union hordes marching in and chaining up the whole Australian economy.

Minister, it is a ludicrous debate. It is about time we pulled it back to the facts before us. It is important to have more productivity, and adequately flexible workplace laws are an important part of that. But they must be tempered and flexible with adequate protections against exploitation. I believe that the Democrats did very well in shaping the workplace relations laws over the previous periods the Howard government has been in office. Since the loss of the Senate and the Democrats’ ability to put in place a balanced approach, we have seen great change. There was a balance between the undoubted pull of the union movement on the Labor Party and the extremist ideology that we are now seeing governing those that count in the coalition. But now the ability to find a middle path to deliver that balance has been lost. That is why this issue has caused such damage to the government that they have started to put in place the Democrats’ safety net that they so gleefully shredded at the first available opportunity. This was despite giving no warning of it during the 2004 election.

It is important in taking a balanced view to note that there are positive measures in this budget. I think that it is churlish and unreasonable and inaccurate to simply nitpick the bits that are bad and ignore some of the positives. For the first time in a few years the income tax cuts are directed at areas where they are most needed—at lower income earners—and they are directed and operated in a way that should enable and encourage lower income earners to engage in more work, including part-time work. That will assist productivity and the real capacity constraints that currently exist in the Australian economy. So it is a good measure.

But the trouble with budgets is that they are always one-offs. There is always a mad frenzy about one budget and then we all forget it and look at the next one—and of course we will have another mini-budget pre-election ‘bribefest’ later on this year and we will focus on that and forget what has happened now. We have not made the structural changes needed. A long-term policy of the Democrats, and one that we will continue to push for, is not to continually battle budget after budget to get tax cuts delivered back in a fair way to assist lower and middle income earners but to index the tax thresholds so that people continually maintain the real value of tax cuts. Whilst these income tax cuts for lower income earners and the hike in the low-income earner offset are welcome, in many respects this is just returning bracket creep. If we could do just one thing it would be to index or even partially index the tax threshold. Then we would not have the government raking in large amounts of extra revenue largely because of bracket creep and CPI impacts and then expecting a huge round of applause when they are just belatedly handing money back a few years later. We need to be putting in place some of those structural reforms that will have a lasting impact rather than just these temporary one-off bursts of largesse. That is a failing in this budget; the positives have not been locked in.

Another failure indicating lack of vision in this budget—and it also goes to issues of productivity—is the total failure to address housing affordability. As National Shelter have indicated today, even with the $15 a week tax cut for lower income earners—which is very much welcome—that is about how much rents have gone up in the last year in many parts of the country, and in some cases they have gone up more. People have already had to cover that just for the rent hikes without anything else regarding their cost of living. The whole issue of housing affordability has been left in the too-hard basket. It does not even need money spent on it to fix it. I acknowledge the government’s adoption finally of the Democrats’ longstanding calls for rent assistance to apply to people over 25 receiving Austudy. This was a ludicrous anomaly that has finally been fixed. It is not even going to cost significant amounts of money to address housing affordability, but it needs vision and structural reform. That has been left in the too-hard basket and that, frankly, does impact on other measures like productivity.

Another measure that should have been in the budget is addressing Indigenous disadvantage, and Indigenous health in particular. It was not, which goes to a lack of vision in core issues of productivity and key areas where capacity could be injected into the Australian economy. I simply cannot believe the total paucity of extra measures that have been put in place to deal with Indigenous health. At best count, about $35 million a year of extra measures for Indigenous health has been allowed, when we all know how much extra funding is needed for that. That is not only a matter of justice; it is a matter of delivering better results for productivity and capacity in the Australian economy. Those are just a few key areas. (Time expired)