Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Senator Abetz. Australian families want to feel financially safe and secure. Is the minister aware that, except for Western Australia, the latest statistics show that average weekly earnings are not keeping up with inflation? ABN AMRO’s chief economist is reported as saying this is because Work Choices has been ‘reducing the bargaining power of workers’. Unemployment is low, so workers should be in a good bargaining position. The government says that, since Work Choices was implemented, wages have been going up. How does the government reconcile this rhetoric with the statistics that show average weekly earnings are not keeping up with inflation? What does the minister have to say to Australian families whose wages have gone backwards?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With great respect to the honourable senator, I do not agree with his figures or his calculations. The simple fact is that, since the Howard government has come to have its hands on the levers of the economy, Australian workers have enjoyed a real wage increase of 16.5 per cent. That of course is in stark contradistinction from that which they got under Labor—13 years of Labor got them a 0.2 increase in real wages. Since Work Choices came into being on 27 March we have seen a huge increase in employment, and there is nobody suggesting that that huge increase has come from anything other than the change in the climate as a result of Work Choices. So, when the honourable senator refers to security for families, giving them a job is the best form of security any government can provide to its citizens. Since Work Choices, when unemployment was slightly above five per cent, we have seen it come down to 4.6 per cent. So we have seen a very real benefit to the families of Australia through Work Choices.

The indications are that, in the past 12 months, Australian workers have in fact provided a 2.2 per cent increase in the productivity of this country. The last statistics indicated that the real wage increases over the past 12 months were about 4.1 per cent, if my memory serves me correctly. I see some senators nodding, so I hope that is correct. If it is not, I am more than willing to come in and correct that figure. Suffice to say that Australian workers are undeniably knowing the benefits of Work Choices and the Howard government’s method of looking after the economy and workers.

We have seen industrial disputation at the lowest level ever. If you honestly thought workers were worse off today than they were before, can somebody explain to me, and all the other Australian people, why industrial disputation is at the lowest level since records were kept? I would have thought that that statistic was a very important statistic in indicating worker satisfaction with the current industrial regime, with the wages that they are getting and with the job opportunities that they receive courtesy of the tough decisions that we as the Howard government have taken.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. The statistics being used in this supplementary question are from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Is the minister aware that in the last quarter, apart from wages not keeping pace with inflation, average weekly earnings have actually fallen in Tasmania by 3.2 per cent and in Victoria by 1.4 per cent? Minister, won’t Australian workers and their families have less money in their pockets this Christmas care of Work Choices?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The simple answer is no, because there are over 200,000 people who will actually have jobs this Christmas who did not have jobs last Christmas. So you have well over 200,000 families this Christmas actually enjoying a wage.

In relation to the statistics in Tasmania, I daresay that could well be an indication of the consequences of the trade union movement and that state Labor government working together to keep people out of the federal system and under these old, decaying state awards. Undoubtedly, what I would suggest to Senator Fielding is that, if he is getting those sorts of statistics, he asks the state Labor government in Tasmania why they are holding wages back from the workers of Tasmania rather than freeing up the system so that people can enjoy the benefits of our industrial relations reforms.