Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to speak tonight about Work Choices. I think it is important that, when you vote for a piece of legislation, you believe in it. I certainly voted for Work Choices and I certainly believe in it.

I think it is very important that we deal with the issue, so rightly put forward by Senator Humphries, of Labor’s scare campaign. A scare campaign is one of the poorest forms of politics around. I acknowledge that the Labor Party is doing a very good job of its scare campaign—they are doing it completely without fact, but doing a very good job. They are doing a very good job of peddling a rumour, because they are good at peddling rumours.

It is interesting though that, in the blue-collar areas of such places as the Hunter Valley, the vote actually went against them. The real problem that the working men and women of places like the Hunter Valley and Central Queensland have with the Labor Party is that they know it is a fair dinkum threat to the coal industry and that it is going to be a problem into the future.

When I was first knocking around trying to get a job in about 1990, it was very hard, because we had this thing called ‘unemployment’. It was under the great stewardship of that beacon of light, Paul Keating. I can remember that beacon of light, Paul Keating—he just about sent the place broke. And you could not get a job; it was impossible. I noticed that in Queensland at that time the unemployment rate was around 10.9 per cent. Today it is at four per cent. And the only difference between now and then is: no Labor Party. In 1996 unemployment was at 8.7 per cent and today it is at four per cent.

This is really what the problem is: if we get a Labor Party federally we are going to have a situation where they will have absolute power: in every state, every territory and federally—absolute power. Australians do not like absolute power. They have a concern about absolute power. I would have to acknowledge that, at times, here, there has been a lot of traffic into my office because people want a Senate that is a balance, and I think we in the National Party have offered Australians a sense of balance. But people hate absolute power and they know that that is what will be delivered with a Labor Party government.

What this issue is really about is union party cash flow. It is not about workers’ rights or workers’ choices; it is about managing to get the money to fill up the coffers of the union movement so that they can pay for the Labor Party. Well, we are going to welcome you guys to the real market—the market that every other political party has to go to, and that is the market of being relevant.

But I challenge you: if there are issues with Work Choices, you must be able to come into the Senate and clearly identify those issues. But you will not. You will just talk about Work Choices like you are talking about Scottish people or—and I am one—Catholics. It is: ‘Let’s take this issue and just focus on it and make everybody terribly angry about Work Choices’. But they are not really going to know why; they are just going to know that people have said, ‘Be scared of Work Choices.’ It is on every telegraph pole you see: ‘Be scared of Work Choices’. They never say, ‘This is why’, because they cannot prove why there is a problem with Work Choices. They just know that it is the only way they are going to win their argument. That will save the cash flow so that every worker in Australia will get their pay packet and get that absolutely nauseating feeling of seeing PDC to some spurious union—the representative of which they will never ever see, but they will know that the money will filter its way down to Canberra.

And, ultimately, what are we going to have? We have some star recruits turning up for the Labor Party. We have Mr Combet, and Mr Dougie Cameron, and Mr Shorten, and Mr Marles—they are all turning up here. And where do they all come from? They come from the union movement. It is just as if you were to say, ‘The only way you can get anywhere in the National Party is if you are a member of the CWA.’ This is the absolute pinnacle of the lack of relevance. And now they are trying to fool the Australian public. They get a front-page story: ‘The Labor Party is going to take on the left wing.’ This is how they are going to take on the left wing: they are going to give them all a job so they all end up down here!

This is the sort of scare campaign that they ran with the GST and with Telstra, and now they are going to run it with Work Choices. I hope that they stick to it. I hope that they go to the Australian people and say, ‘Our only relevance is that we make you feel scared about something that has brought the lowest level of unemployment in our nation’s history and one of the highest real growths in wages’—because that is what Work Choices has actually delivered.

But what the Australian people really should be scared of, what they really should be concerned about, is the absolute power—the tyrannical, totalitarian regime—that we will have in this nation if we get a Labor Party in government federally. It always irks me to look across the chamber and see that the Labor members always vote in a bloc—they always stick together. It is that union solidarity—one in, all in. ‘Let’s all go!’ They always vote as a bloc. They sometimes even have to vote against their own motions, which is surprising. I have seen that happen here before. That is the sort of totalitarian control that the union movement demands of its people. That is what it will deliver to the Australian people. And there will be no checks and no balances—all states, all territories, all money in this nation will be controlled by Sussex Street in Sydney; it will be running the show. And all the time we see the real power of the Labor Party in this chamber sitting up the back there—Mr Faulkner, keeping his eye on the show, keeping control, making sure everybody is in line. And now the only thing they have to work out is how to keep that cash flow going.

The other thing the Labor Party is trying to espouse is that we have had the same industrial relations package since Barton—that things never change. This is a package for its times. It is a package to deal with the fact that we have virtual full employment and a growing economy. It is a package for its times because it is dealing with the fact that if you have labour for sale then you have a product that everybody wants. The hardest thing to keep in this economy is your labour force. There are so many opportunities out there and ever-increasing wages that people can go to. The biggest fear any business has is losing its labour because there is such an active market out there buying it up.

But the opposition are trying to sell the idea that the reason you should vote for the Labor Party is that the Labor Party believes you are scared. The Labor Party are pitching to fear. They are going to pitch an argument of fear to the Australian people. But there is no substance to it. They cannot find the detail of the policy. They cannot find the exemplars of this major issue. In fact, as we have already heard tonight, to prove their point they find actors—no doubt they are in a union—to act out what they hope the Australian people will understand as the thing they should be scared of: what is outside in the real world. But the Australian people are out in the real world and they are enjoying one of the highest rates of real wage growth, among the lowest rates of unemployment and huge opportunities, especially in the coal industry.

What the Australian people should really fear is absolute power—the absolute power that will come when the Labor Party are in every state and every territory, and when they are in the lower house and up here. That is what they should be scared of: a time when Mr Swan is the Treasurer and Mr Garrett has the power of veto over the coal industry. They should be scared of Mr Anthony Albanese.

Those opposite should be scared when Dougie Cameron turns up here. They will have to give him a job because he is one of their bosses. When Dougie Cameron turns up here, he will have to get a plum job because he runs the show and you have to respect that. When Mr Shorten and Mr Marles and Mr Combet turn up here they will expect to run the show. It is their right. In the meantime, they must be given back their cashflow because they are worried about that. Those PDCs are running out the door. That money that just ran into their coffers is running out the door. And they would hate the idea of having to go to the marketplace to actually be relevant to the Australian people and to get a reason for the Australian people to put money in their pockets. You go up to Central Queensland and they pay something like $1,000— (Time expired)