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

I rise to plot the course of the Work Choices reforms and the great success story for business and working men and women of Australia and their families, specifically in Tasmania.

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hear, hear!

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

Thank you, Senator Kemp, for that commendation. The evidence that I will be sharing demonstrates, in my view quite clearly, that Work Choices is working. Labor and the unions made two simple claims about Work Choices prior to its introduction. The first was that jobs would be slashed and the second was that wages would be cut. The exact opposite has occurred. It is time, in my view, for both the Labor Party and the union movement to admit their mistake and apologise. Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to 4.6 per cent in October this year—its lowest level for 30 years. Unemployment has fallen by over 240,000 since the Howard government was elected in 1996. Australia now has a record high of 10,287,400 in work, and of these three-quarters or 7.3 million are full time. So since the Howard government came to office in March 1996 well over 1.9 million jobs have been created and towards 200,000 more jobs have been created since Work Choices started in March this year. In Tasmania the number of full-time jobs has grown from 151,200 in March this year, using the trend figures, to 154,100 last month, while the Tasmanian unemployment rate in trend terms has dropped from 6.5 per cent to 6.4 per cent.

Now, what about real wages? We have talked about jobs and unemployment—what about real wages? Real wages have actually increased 16.5 per cent since 1996, and last month, interestingly, against the predictions of the union movement and the Labor Party, the Australian Fair Pay Commission increased the federal minimum wage by $27 a week. In terms of real wages, it was a 16.5 per cent increase, compared to a minus 0.2 per cent fall under the previous Labor government, when they had 13 years of government. It was 0.2 per cent down.

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is that right? That is an amazing figure.

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

That is an amazing figure, Senator Kemp, and I take your interjection. What did Labor claim would happen under Work Choices? This is what Mr Kim Beazley said at a press conference on 10 October 2005:

This is about slashing wages; make absolutely no mistake about that.

Then what did Stephen Smith, the shadow industrial relations spokesperson, say in a media release on 28 March this year? He said:

... the Minimum Wage will not rise in real terms under the Australian Fair Pay Commission.

In both cases they have been proven wrong, but they have not as yet admitted their mistake or apologised to the Australian people.

In contrast let us look at the figures under the previous Labor government, when Mr Beazley was employment minister and the unemployment rate reached a peak of 10.9 per cent, with nearly one million Australians out of work. That is true—nearly one million Australians were out of work. So much for the doom and gloom spin of the unions and the ALP that Work Choices would lead to mass sackings and a big cut in wages. That was proved wrong.

A fascinating fact that I have seen in the last month’s statistics relating to Tasmania and the Australian workplace agreements is for industry penetration in Tasmania. It has actually increased from nine per cent in late 2005 to 13 per cent in September this year. This is against a national penetration which has grown from six per cent to seven per cent in the same period. So Tasmania has nearly doubled the penetration rate of the national average. Tasmanian based AWAs prior to Work Choices totalled 31,634. Since Work Choices, up to 31 October this year, the total is 35,590. As for AWA growth since March, there were 151 AWAs in April, 403 in May and 749 in August, rising to 793 in October. The grand total since March is 3,956. Since 1997 there have been over 10 million AWAs struck in Australia. The number of currently live AWAs nationally is 646,341 and live AWAs in Tasmania total 24,521. On average, Tasmanian AWAs deliver an income 48 per cent higher than employees on awards get. What is the Labor policy with respect to AWAs? What would they say about the 24,000 Tasmanians or the nearly 650,000 Australians on AWAs? They want to abolish AWAs. They want to reduce the wages of those Australian men and women on AWAs, and they want to reduce them big-time.

Why is that? The union movement have promised $20 million to the Labor Party in the lead-up to the next election by levying their members, and that adage ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’ in my view is exactly right in this case. Labor want to remove choices; we want to retain choice for Australian businesses and for small business. We want to build a spirit of enterprise and entrepreneurialism in Australia. We want to encourage creativity. We want to support initiative. We want to build and underpin the things that we support with reward for effort. Why shouldn’t we have choice for men and women in the workplace? And AWAs offer that choice. Labor will remove that choice. In Tasmania it is interesting that we have such a high penetration rate compared to the national average, because we are a small-business state. Fifty per cent of the private sector workforce comes from small business, and that is something that I am very proud of with respect to Tasmania. What about industrial disputes? What has happened to them under Work Choices? Believe it or not, they are at a record low level.

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought World War III was going to break out!

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

That is right. That is what we were expecting, Senator Kemp; that is true. I can tell you what the ABS data says about industrial disputes. Let us look at the facts. They have shown that there were 3.1 working days lost per 1,000 employees in the June quarter this year, the lowest quarterly rate of disputes ever recorded by the ABS. This is an early indication of the success of Work Choices. It is fostering greater workplace cooperation, as opposed to the views expressed by the Labor Party and the union movement that the exact opposite would occur. This rate is more than 33 times lower than the highest rate recorded under the Labor government, which was 104.6 working days lost per 1,000 employees for the December 1992 quarter, when guess who was minister for employment? Kim Beazley. There has been an average of 13.4 working days lost per 1,000 employees each quarter under the Workplace Relations Act 1996 from March 1997 to June 2006, and this contrasts with the average quarterly rate of 44.4 working days lost per 1,000 employees under Labor from June 1985 to June 1996. So the high dispute levels act as a constraint on economic and employment growth, and what we are doing is encouraging greater workplace participation and cooperation.

I want to comment briefly on the High Court challenge. The Labor Party and the union movement supported a frivolous High Court challenge to the Work Choices legislation, and the Labor states and the union movement challenged the reforms in the High Court. Those challenges have cost all those parties, I understand, an estimated $4 million. In my home state of Tasmania, the Lennon government are running a budget deficit, yet they were willing to spend around $100,000. Is this correct? Can the state government confirm these figures?

Finally, I want to thank the Minister for Human Services, Joe Hockey, for his visit to Tasmania on 16 and 17 November. He came down to speak about the merits of Work Choices and to support the hardworking local member for Bass, Michael Ferguson. He participated in a number of business breakfasts, lunches, meetings and briefings, and it was a very successful visit. He met with Ben Quinn, the federal Liberal candidate for Lyons. (Time expired)