George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Finance and Administration, Senator Minchin. Will the minister inform the Senate how the government’s policies are benefiting ordinary Australians? In particular, how does the government’s Work Choices protect the right to join a union? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Brandis for that timely question. As Senator Brandis well knows, our coalition government is getting on with the job of implementing good policies that help ordinary Australian families. But we have seen in the last few days that that approach stands in stark contrast to that of the alternative government—the Labor Party. On our side last Thursday, the benefits of our economic policies were demonstrated with unemployment numbers again at record lows—below five per cent at 4.8 per cent. Since our Work Choices reforms commenced some six months ago, over 200,000 jobs have been created in the Australian economy. On Thursday last week, we announced our $837 million Skills for the Future package to assist with training and retraining older workers in particular. Our policies are creating real jobs for Australians and at the same time protecting their basic rights and freedoms. One of those basic rights and freedoms is the right to join a union, but it includes the right not to join a union.

On the weekend we had a very significant contrast between two quite significant party conferences. At a conference held by our National Party colleagues, led here so well by Senator Ron Boswell, that party discussed the real issues facing regional Australia. They discussed real issues like the drought that is gripping much of Australia. But in my home city of Adelaide we had the Labor leader, Kim Beazley, and the Labor Party demonstrating again why they would put Australia’s significant prosperity at great risk. We know Labor’s policy on industrial relations, which I do not think we have seen yet, will not be written to benefit ordinary Australians; it will be written to keep the ACTU happy. Indeed, ACTU Secretary Greg Combet made a prophetic statement, also in Adelaide, earlier this year when he said:

... we used to run the country and it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we did again.

It was a prophetic statement. Yesterday Mr Beazley made it abundantly clear that the unions at least still run the Labor Party. To quote Mr Beazley yesterday:

The Labor Party has unions affiliated to it and we stand shoulder to shoulder with the union movement and we are controlled by our members.

I repeat that statement; it is very significant: ‘we’—the Labor Party—‘are controlled by our members.’ Of course, in the Labor Party, that means the trade unions. There is no better demonstration of that control than yesterday when the Labor Party banned journalists who had chosen not to join the journalists union from covering the South Australian Labor Party conference. These journalists exercising their right not to join a union were banned from coming into the Labor conference. Non-union journalists were told that they would have to join the union then and there if they were going to get past the front door and cover the conference. I want to commend all those Adelaide journalists who stood up to that sort of bullying and intimidation from the Labor Party.

The Labor Party spent all week last week lecturing us on freedom and diversity and freedom of the press. Senator Conroy said:

... free and open discussion of ideas and opinions is the lifeblood of democracy.

There was not much free and open discussion on the weekend. Freedom of the press stops at the ALP front door. The trouble for the alternative government is that Australians now know that Mr Beazley will not stand up to the unions and that if he were Prime Minister, Mr Combet would have his wish granted and the unions would certainly be running the country once again.