Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have great pleasure today in rising to contribute to this very important MPI. I note that it didn't take too long for this government to be able to come here and be up to their old tricks. In fewer than 100 days they're up to their old tricks. Already they're demonstrating that, really, it's just their union mates, their paymasters, who are in charge. On the back of channelling the former Hawke government with a summit of words and no action, now the government has heeded the union's clarion call for industry-wide bargaining power. Never mind the inflation crisis, which is an issue that all Australians are facing, along with high interest rates and spiralling cost-of-living pressures. No, this government is intent, post talkfest, on ensuring that unions are happy running amok in the Australian workplace. Businesses and industries of all sizes are rightly concerned at this sudden development. Why? Because, through industry-wide bargaining, unions may seek to weaponise strike action once again through protected action.

This should alarm everyone. The risk of economy-wide shutdown is a regression back to the 1970s and 1980s, which Australians in this generation, and now for a couple of generations, have never experienced and wouldn't want to. Be in no doubt: industrial striking is an instrument of sector-wide bargaining. You don't have to go far to see the damaging impacts that strike action had on the Australian economy in the 1970s, when industry-wide strikes were common and the Australian industry was protected by high tariff barriers.

Data assembled by Dr Jim Stanford indicates that in the 1970s the average number of industrial disputes each year was 2,300, yet in the period of 2010 to 2018 there was an average of 198. You only have to remember the dire state in Britain in the 1970s when strike action was out of control and crippling the British economy. It culminated with the famous winter of discontent. 'Crisis—what crisis?' yelled the British press during the dying days of a British Labor government.

Now in 2022 it's back to the future again. In New South Wales we're seeing the rail strikes, particularly in Sydney, while up in Brisbane the CFMMEU is flexing its muscle and picketing in the CBD. It's also calling for industrial action at airports, which would pose a significant threat to an industry that is already precarious because of the COVID pandemic. We know what the disruption has been in that industry. The last thing they need is to have that compounded by further industrial action.

Nothing emboldens unions more than the ascent to office of a federal Labor government, and that's what we're seeing right now. In the past, the Labor Party rejected the coalition's modest changes to the better off overall test. Interestingly, a 4 September 2022 Australian Financial Review article quoted former Prime Minister Paul Keating as saying that the BOOT is overprescriptive, while former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty said it was crazy.

This government should work with the coalition to ensure that the Australian workplace remains harmonious. Our economy depends on this, colleagues. Our economy depends on this. This is the last thing that we would want to see. We cannot revert back to the bleak days of a bygone era. The last thing that this country needs during an environment of high inflation, high interest rates, increasing interest rates and out-of-control costs of living is unions gridlocking the Australian economy. It is for these reasons that I support this motion here today.

Who is in charge of the agenda of this government? Who is in charge of the progression of our economy? It seems to be the unions. The unions were in force at the summit last week. There were over 30 union officials, 33 or 34. Yet there were only seven Western Australians present at that meeting. So who's in charge? Who's listening to the interests of the economy, listening to the interests of those that are creating the jobs and have actually got the jobs to make available for Australians? Sadly, that's what we're seeing. We're seeing that the unions are in control. This lot over here—those are their paymasters and that's what's happening.