George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to address the Governor-General’s speech and the outlining in that speech of the legislative agenda for the first Rudd government. I think the way in which the Rudd government has approached this term and the challenges this country will be confronted with—and is confronted with at the present time—and the way in which it intends to deal with those challenges will ensure that we will see more than one speech by the Governor-General outlining the program for a Rudd Labor government.

One of the centrepieces of the address was the approach to industrial relations. What a welcome breath of fresh air it is to see a government that is committed to ensuring a framework is put in place that will restore fairness as a central point in our industrial relations system—fair to employers and, more importantly, fair to employees—and that will ensure that the old Australian idiom of the ‘fair go’ will be back as a centrepiece of our industrial relations system, getting rid of the pernicious laws that were introduced by the previous government and that tipped the scales squarely in favour of employers and provided the opportunity for unscrupulous employers in this country to attack workers’ wages and living standards.

Over the period of the operation of Work Choices we saw a litany of reports in the newspapers of various companies—Boeing was one, Tristar was another; there was a whole history of companies—where workers were exploited by the use of these laws that were put in place by the previous government. Hopefully, we will see the abolition of most of those laws by the end of this year and see in their place a new industrial relations system operating from 1 January 2010 that has at its heart fairness in the workplace. We hope that that system will run for some considerable time into the future before there is a need to revisit our industrial relations system for further amendments. The reason that that was a centre point of the Governor-General’s address was the way it operated in practice—the disadvantage it brought to many workers in many industries, which was the objective of that legislation all along.

Many other issues were touched upon in the Governor-General’s address in this chamber several weeks ago. The government’s approach to dealing with the economy was one. The problem that is besetting our economy at the moment is that inflation is gradually getting out of control. The previous government allowed a situation to develop in this country where the Reserve Bank is in fact increasing interest rates in order to try to keep inflation under control, while in the rest of the world the central banks in the major developed countries are in fact cutting interest rates to try to boost their economic activity.

That obviously is of major concern in terms of its impact upon living standards, the cost of living for many workers and the capacity of ordinary working families to pay their mortgages, to put sufficient food on the table and so on. We have known for a very long time that one of the most negative features of any economy, particularly for working people, is rising inflation, because that eats into their savings, the value of their wages and their capacity to look after their families—to feed them, clothe them and house them. As has been clearly stated by the Prime Minister and by the Treasurer, that is the No. 1 enemy that is the focus of the government at the moment, and a lot of effort is being put into bringing in a budget in May which will ensure that we get the inflation genie back under control.

The second issue is an issue that was debated in this chamber yesterday—that is, skill shortages. We saw the previous government virtually ignore over 11 years what was happening in terms of skill shortages in this country. It did nothing other than put in place some quick fixes, some bandaids over the system, by bringing in traineeships and cutting apprenticeships and training times—anything to boost the facade of the numbers of people who were in training but at the same time delivering no real jobs out of the process, no real tradespeople coming out at the end of the line and certainly nowhere near sufficient numbers to meet the skills needs of the economy.

The Rudd government, as spelt out in the Governor-General’s address, has made a commitment to reversing that trend, to dealing with the issue of the supply of skilled labour in our economy—not just in terms of meeting the immediate needs of the economy but also in terms of putting in place a structure which will meet the skill needs into the longer term. In other words, this is about being able to assess the changing role, the changing skills, that will be required in our economy over time and to ensure that the infrastructure and training is put in place to ensure that the people are there with those skills when the economy requires them. That will be the central role played by Skills Australia. It will also be its role to ensure that the infrastructure that exists in this country for training people, for providing skills, is utilised in the most effective way to deliver the outcomes that the economy needs. That will be central, over the short to medium term, to the capacity of this government to deliver economic outcomes that are in the best interests of ordinary working Australians. Unless we can provide those human resources, we will not be able to provide the economic outcomes—the productivity—and generate the activity in the economy that we otherwise would be able to or to provide and build upon the nation’s wealth. The more we create, of course, the more there is to share around. One thing about this government is that it will ensure that there is a better distribution of the wealth it has created in the economy than was the case over the past 11½ years under the Howard government.

The Rudd government has set an ambitious agenda for its three-year term, across a wide range of policy issues, and it certainly has been made very clear on every occasion by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, that he is determined to deliver on the commitments we made in the election campaign. So far, he has done it on every occasion. I do not think there was any prouder moment for a member of the Labor Party, a member of the Rudd government, than to be in this place as a member of that government when the government had the courage to say sorry to our Indigenous community, to try to commence the process of healing the divisions that have existed between our Indigenous community and the migrants in the country over many, many years and to put in place a framework so that we can live as an integrated community where everyone not only is looked upon as an equal but in fact is given equal treatment. We know from bitter experience that many of our Indigenous communities, particularly in remote areas of the country, are not treated as equals or treated equally when it comes to the distribution of resources—health resources, education resources and so forth. I look forward to seeing the improvement that comes out of the process that is now underway in dealing with those circumstances.

I think the next three years are going to be an exciting period in this parliament. I think it will be an exciting period politically for the nation, but, more importantly, it will be an exciting period for ordinary working Australian families, as they see their lives continuously improved by the policy decisions and approaches taken by the Rudd Labor government in its first term. As I said before, I think the Governor-General will be along here on many more occasions delivering his address on behalf of future Rudd Labor governments.