Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is correct: they said it would slash jobs. They also said it would reduce wages. They were the two main allegations that not only the Labor Party but also the union movement put to the Australian people. Labor and the union movement together said those things. They made those allegations—along with the fact that ‘the sky was going to fall in’. Exactly what has happened? Jobs have not been slashed and wages have not gone down. We have over 326,000 new jobs since the new industrial relations system came into force. What else has happened? We now have a 20 per cent increase in real wages. This is above inflation. Let us compare it to the 13 years under Labor. What happened is that real wages actually went down as a result of the stewardship of the Australian Labor government for 13 years prior to the Howard government entering office in 1996. So now we have more Australians in work than ever before. That is a historic record of 10,416,600 Australians. The bulk of those people are, in fact, in full-time jobs. More than two million new jobs have been created since the Howard government came to office, and almost 1.2 million of those are full-time jobs. That is where the Howard government is delivering in spades for Australian working men and women.

Today I was delighted to reflect on the answer given by the honourable senator Eric Abetz to a question from Senator Judith Adams. He advised the figures with respect to the number of jobs and confirmed the position of the government—that the most important safety net that any government can provide to its citizens is the opportunity for a job. Remember that under Labor we had over one million Australians on the unemployment scrap heap. He reminded the Senate that we have legislated minimum conditions that cannot be traded, including four weeks annual leave, 10 days sick leave per year, a maximum of 38 hours in a working week and, of course, a minimum wage. When I mention the term ‘minimum wage’, we reflect back to the IR policy announcement by the Labor Party at their national conference just a week or so ago. This is something that was not referred to when they released their IR policy. It was not there. You can look at the records. The fact is that they did not include a minimum wage in the release of their own policy. It is what you would call policy on the run. The Labor Party, on the other side, forgot to include it. That is basic, and it is very disappointing. It shows that they are out of touch.

And they did not consult the business community. Mr Eddington has already made that quite clear, as have various industry and business groups around Australia. In terms of their IR policy the Labor Party have confirmed that they wish to rip up AWAs, that they wish to pursue the unfair dismissal laws, which were so unfair on small business—remembering that this country now has two million small businesses. They are the backbone of this economy in my view, particularly in rural and regional Australia. The admiration and respect that should be shown to small business is being demonstrated by the Howard-Costello government but it is not being demonstrated by the opposition, because they support this job-destroying unfair dismissal regime. They want to bring it back. They want to take Australia back decades into the past with their industrial relations regime. They want to set up the centralised wage-fixing system of old, of decades ago.

Time has passed, time has moved on and the Howard-Costello team have a policy in place where we have had to make some tough decisions to get the economic reforms in place to ensure that productivity is growing, to ensure that we have more jobs, to ensure that we have got higher wages—and guess what? It is being delivered in spades. The Labor Party should acknowledge that, accept it and go to the Australian people and say: ‘We apologise. We’ve got it wrong. We’ve muffed it.’ Sadly, they have not done that.

Under Labor for 13 years, we had 17 per cent interest rates and for small business it was even higher. How can they operate, do well, employ people and put money back into their community when interest rates are that high? Interest rates under a conservative government and a coalition government will always be lower than under Labor—and this is a concern for the Australian people, let it be known. Under Labor there was double-digit unemployment and a million Australians were on the unemployment scrap heap.

Labor want to scrap AWAs, and I do not know why. I ask the question: why is it? The union movement own and operate the Labor Party. In this place, for example, in the Australian parliament, 70 per cent of the Australian Labor Party representatives are from a union background. They own and operate the Labor Party. Even at the Labor Party conference it was quite clear: Mr Greg Combet was parachuted into a new position, followed by Bill Shorten from the AWU. You have got Jennie George, Martin Ferguson and Simon Crean. You have to ask the question: is the tail wagging the dog or the dog wagging the tail with respect to who is in control? It is my strong view that the union bosses are in control.

I want to congratulate Joe Hockey, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, on his leadership and compliment him for it. He has demonstrated that he has worked and listened to not only the business community and various business representatives but also the working men and women of Australia. He has been to Tasmania. He has met with the employees and he has met with the employers. He has done the rounds of this country and got a feel for what it is like, unlike the Labor Party who have refused to consult and talk to people in industry, particularly in the mining sector.

I have a lot of empathy for people in Western Australia. You have a state Labor government who are solidly behind AWAs and have just this week used them for a major construction work south of Perth. They cannot convince their federal colleagues to see sense. I would encourage them to lobby their federal colleagues to dissuade them from pursuing this policy of ripping up AWAs. But the mining industry in particular is very appreciative of the fact that they have the opportunity of choice, of pursuing workplace arrangements with their employees in that way. They have very low unemployment in Western Australia.

It just so happens that in terms of AWAs we have about eight per cent penetration of the Australian workforce; in Tasmania, it is actually 13 per cent, so we have a very high penetration. As a Tasmanian senator I am proud that the Howard government has provided business in Tasmania with a choice. The Labor Party want to remove that choice for business and they want to go back to a centralised wage-fixing system where the unions are back in the workplace and dictating policy to employers and their employees. I know that AWAs are working in Tasmania. A recent editorial in the Australian Financial Review said:

As countless firms—from Rio Tinto to Banjo’s Bakehouse in south-west Tasmania—can testify, individual contracts offer breakthroughs in productivity that are sometimes not available through union-brokered deals ...

Banjo’s bakery, in Strahan in the western part of Tasmania, is well known for its excellent bakery, and people appreciate it. I also know that the employees at Banjo’s bakery appreciate the arrangements that are in place, because in the wintertime the demand for the bakery services is much lower. In the summertime it is much higher, yet they have the opportunity of having a job and they have an arrangement with their employer where they can have a job and be confident about planning for the future. They can go and get a mortgage. They can go to the bank and say, ‘I’ve got a job; it’s full time,’ or ‘It’s permanent part-time,’ and so on. They have an AWA in place.

In a recent editorial the Australian said that Mr Rudd’s reregulation of industrial relations will increase business operation and compliance costs and reduce productivity. The whole thrust of the Labor Party’s proposal is that our federal budget will actually reduce productivity. The biggest threat to productivity in my view is actually Labor’s plans to reregulate the labour market and hand control over to the unions. They want us to go back not just a few years but decades and put the unions back in control. It is not just my opinion. I want to share the opinion of Heather Ridout of the Australian Industry Group, who said:

Kevin Rudd talks a lot about productivity but this re-regulation will lower productivity.

That is the view of the Australian Industry Group. Michael Chaney of the Business Council of Australia said:

Despite claiming to support policies that will lead to continuing productivity, the ALP has clearly ignored consistent and strong business representations about how productivity and jobs growth is achieved in the economy …

You cannot get much clearer than that. There are a host of small business organisations—not just the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry but also Tony Steven, a colleague and friend of mine from the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia, and in Tasmania, of course, the Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and other small business groups, the backbones of our economy—and they do not like the thought of being reregulated and having more red tape and unions in control of their businesses.

The Howard-Costello budget is designed to provide for the long term; we have set up the Future Fund. Yes, it is an education budget, and we have set up the endowment fund for universities. It is consistent with this government’s policy of making tough decisions. How do you get productivity? You have to make tough decisions—and the runs are on the board because you have had the waterfront disputes and the reform of the waterfront. You have had the GST reforms. Of course, what has happened there is that the states have been flooded with GST dollars, allowing them opportunities to cut taxes and provide services whether it is education, health, welfare, police or so on. It is sadly being mismanaged and maladministered, particularly in my home state where they have $117 million over and above what they would have been receiving under the old tax system.

So you have these tough decisions that are being made by our government—gun laws is another and industrial relations reform is yet another. That is the reason you get productivity growth. That is the reason that we are providing the jobs for Australians. That is the reason that inflation is low and real wages are high, having increased 20 per cent over the last 10 or 11 years. It has provided for a flexible labour market.

Of course, there are going to be further reforms. We heard earlier today about energy, water and transport. We have $22 billion being expended under AusLink. That is a huge increase. I think it was $13 billion or $14 billion last year, but it is a very big increase and that will provide opportunities. This is infrastructure development, particularly in rural and regional Australia. Our record of investment in land transport infrastructure through AusLink 2 is very much appreciated. These are the things that have been done by the Howard-Costello government.

I want to compliment Michael Ferguson and Mark Baker in north and north-west Tasmania for their advocacy of these tough decisions—sometimes it is tough, but they realise it is delivering jobs in Tasmania. They realise that there are higher wages in Tasmania for their constituents. I can assure you that Ben Quinn, the Liberal candidate in Lyons, is a strong advocate for road funding and for supporting rural and regional Tasmania; he is very keen to ensure that there are policies to tackle the water crisis and energy issues and he is working with the local community to make a difference. Vanessa Goodwin in the Franklin electorate in the south has a fresh, new approach and people have been appreciating that very much indeed.

In conclusion, the government has delivered and will continue to deliver for the long term. That is exactly what this government has done in the past and that is what we are planning to do in the future. In planning for the long term in health, the government is delivering in spades. We saw that in this budget. We have the Active After-School Communities program—that has been extended now by over $120 million to encourage more healthy Australian children. Thank you, Minister Brandis, for that initiative; it is very much appreciated. We have $100 million from our government and another $100 million from the states—over $200 million—to tackle the type 2 diabetes epidemic across this country. We have a national nutrition and physical activity survey, the Wellbeing Plan for Children and a whole lot more activities in funding initiatives to tackle the obesity epidemic. Those initiatives are very much appreciated. (Time expired)