Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

In commencing this debate it is very interesting to note that Senator Abetz was asked to answer some questions in relation to statements by candidates in the New South Wales election—a National Party candidate in Tweed, Mr Provest, and a Liberal Party candidate in Goulburn, Ms Pru Goward. In each case we have seen Senator Abetz being most creative in the way that he has interpreted the public contributions of these candidates, expressing their concern, firstly, about the negative impact that Work Choices legislation would have on the son of the candidate in Tweed and, secondly, from Ms Goward, in relation to the negative responses she received on the door in that campaign in relation to the Work Choices legislation.

But I suppose I should not have been surprised that Senator Abetz would try and turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse in this case. I am not surprised because yesterday Senator Abetz was answering a question and he gave an answer which did quite surprise me. He said in answer to a question from Senator Boswell about fisheries:

For example, at the recent estimates, Labor’s fisheries spokesman, Senator O’Brien, did not ask a single question about illegal fishing—not one.

That is a quote from Hansard. It is true: I did not ask one question about illegal fishing; I asked 61 questions about illegal fishing. Frankly, for Senator Abetz on that occasion to so misrepresent the facts colours the answers that he gives in this place and I think gives us the grounds to say, ‘You have to look very carefully at the basis for the answers that Senator Abetz gives in this place. You have to look very carefully behind what he says.’ There was no basis for what Senator Abetz said yesterday about what I had or had not asked in estimates. The fact of the matter is that he did not answer one single question in that estimates round. Today he is trying to invent reasons to justify the explanations he gave about those damning comments about the Work Choices legislation made by coalition candidates in the New South Wales election.

But if you want to get the most damning comments that you can about the Work Choices legislation you need only go to the Prime Minister’s comments in the House of Representatives yesterday. One of the key aspects of the Work Choices legislation is Australian workplace agreements. This is an instrument that the government chants is something which is, by providing flexibility, going to be good for workers. This is the mantra of the government: by providing flexibility, this will lift up wages for workers. This is the line that the government has been trying to feed to the Australian people for some time. What did the Prime Minister have to say about this yesterday? Let me read from Hansard. He was asked a couple of questions about AWAs and nurses and AWAs and TAFE and university funding. He said in answer to one of the questions:

What we said as a condition of funding was that one of the options should be AWAs.

He was talking about the TAFEs. He went on:

Let me emphasise that the conditions that apply in relation to the employment of nurses in our view is quite different and that is why we have absolutely no intention of introducing any conditions, either of the type contemplated in the question—

meaning AWAs—

that I answered a few moments ago or indeed of the type that were introduced in relation to academics. We have no intention of doing that in relation to nurses.

There was an interjection and then he went on:

I happen to take the view that nurses in this country, given their responsibilities and the onerous work they carry out, are grossly underpaid.

Well, if AWAs are the solution for the workforce to make their work more accessible and easy and their pay— (Time expired)

Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no doubt about the Labor Party. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, they still continue with the scare campaign in relation to Work Choices that they have now been running for more than 12 months since Work Choices was introduced. When Work Choices was mooted and when it was introduced Labor and their mates in the trade unions made three allegations—they lodged three charges against Work Choices. The first of that was that, with the introduction of Work Choices, there would be mass sackings in the workplace.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wrong.

Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wrong, as Senator McGauran says. I will come to that in a minute. The second allegation was that there would be drastic wage cuts. The third allegation was that there would be an enormous escalation in strikes, industrial action and disputation. The very welcome first anniversary of the introduction of Work Choices gives the lie to every one of those claims. They have been shown to be demonstrably false. They are nothing more than a cheap—intellectually cheap, because certainly financially they have not been cheap; there has been a massive expenditure campaign by the trade unions on the scare campaign—scare campaign by the Labor Party.

Of course, this replicates the false scare campaign that Labor ran against the first round of the Howard government’s workplace relations reforms back in 1996-97. Those reforms were demonstrated to be beneficial. The scare campaign run against them at the time has been shown over the years to be demonstrably false, as indeed was the scare campaign the Labor Party ran against the Howard government’s tax reform and the introduction of the goods and services tax. This shows us that all the Labor Party are capable of is false scare campaigns. It again reinforces that they are a policy-lazy party.

The facts give lie to this particular scare campaign. Let us have a look at the facts. The evidence shows that the new workplace relations laws are indeed working in the interests of Australian workers. Among that evidence is the fact that since the introduction of Work Choices 12 months ago there have been more than 263,700 jobs created, and 87 per cent of those new jobs have been full-time jobs. Over the previous decade there were very creditable improvements in job creation under the Howard government but a substantial number of those—almost half—over that period were part-time jobs. It was about a fifty-fifty split between full time and part time. But in the last 12 months 87 per cent of the new jobs have been full-time jobs. As an adjunct to that, many of those who were previously employed as casuals are now being given permanent positions—again, as a direct result of the Work Choices reforms.

The unemployment rate remains at a 30-year low of 4.6 per cent, and teenage full-time unemployment has also significantly declined. Our unemployment is the lowest it has been in 30 years, and this compares with the current average of the OECD countries of 5.8 per cent. Australia has an unemployment rate of 4.6 per cent; the average rate of unemployment for OECD countries is 5.8 per cent. What better demonstrates the benefits of Work Choices than that figure?

This fall in unemployment has been achieved notwithstanding an increase in the participation rate. Quite often when the participation rate increases—that is, more people are seeking jobs—the unemployment rate rises. In this case the participation rate has risen to a near record 64.9 per cent and yet unemployment has also fallen. That is because of the strong incentives that people now have to employ—our strong economy combined with the benefits of Work Choices. Real wages have grown by 1.5 per cent. This real increase in just one year is greater than the real increase in workers’ wages over the whole 13 years that the previous Labor government was in office. What better demonstration do you want of the efficacy of Work Choices?

The third allegation that Labor made about industrial disputes again has not been borne out. We have near record low levels of industrial disputation. Work Choices has delivered the goods for Australian workers, as did our first round of workplace relations reforms in 1996-97, and indeed as have all of the other Howard government economic reforms. Back in 1996 when we came to office unemployment was 8.2 per cent and indeed had peaked at 10.9 per cent under Labor in December 1992. Since 1996 two million jobs have been created. (Time expired)

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Chapman must have a definition of what is good for Australian workers that is very different from mine. Certainly, since Work Choices has come in we have seen reduced job security for working families throughout Australia. We have seen thousands of workers being pushed onto AWA individual contracts and we have seen AWA individual contracts cutting workers’ pay and conditions. When we have a Senate estimates process and the relevant government body is forced to reveal that information, what is the government’s solution? Stop collecting the data. That way we will not know what is going on.

But, unfortunately for the government, there are some government instrumentalities that still collect data, like the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which reports that they have had a 60 per cent increase in workplace related complaints since Work Choices came in. There has been a 60 per cent increase in discrimination cases and complaints in the workplace since this single piece of legislation came in. I suppose the government’s solution to that will be to tell them to stop collecting data too. You did not like the data you got from your other government bodies.

Let us recap on what that data was before they were told to stop collecting it. Your own report that you gave us in May last year showed that, of the AWA individual contracts that had been lodged to that point, 100 per cent cut at least one so-called protected award condition; 22 per cent provided workers with no pay rise at all, some for up to five years; 51 per cent cut overtime loadings—that is something to be proud of!; 63 per cent cut penalty rates; 64 per cent cut annual leave loadings; 46 per cent cut public holiday payments; and 52 per cent cut shift work loadings. That is something that was of concern to blue-collar workers in the seat of Goulburn, and Ms Goward might be reflecting on that, because she was certainly reflecting on it on my television last night. I do not know which television station Senator Abetz was watching, but she was very clear about the impact it had on blue-collar workers in Goulburn in the news I was watching last night.

When the government was prepared to release figures, those figures showed that 40 per cent of AWAs cut rest breaks; 46 per cent cut incentive based payments and bonuses; 48 per cent cut monetary allowances for employment expenses, skills, disabilities and the like; 36 per cent cut declared public holidays; and 44 per cent cut days to be substituted for public holidays. What is the government’s solution? Stop collecting the data. That is the only solution that they have had. The only data we get now is the delayed data from ABS and from HREOC, and I suppose you will just tell them not to collect the data either.

Then, of course, there is the impact that AWAs have had on women in the workforce. In November 1996, a date that some people in this place should remember, the gender gap on full-time adult ordinary time earnings was 84.2 per cent. A decade later—a decade-long Howard government—the wages gap has increased and now the gender gap is 83.7 per cent. That is something else that you should be really proud of! There has been no narrowing either of the gender wages gap on the data relating to all employees’ total earnings, which has remained stuck at 65.5 per cent.

Australian women on AWAs now, thanks to this government, who work full time, earn on average $2.30 less per hour or $87.40 less per week than those on collective agreements, and they earn $100 a week less on average than their male equivalents in the workforce. Now that is progressive! That is something you should be very proud of achieving! It has taken you 10 years but you have got there. That is really good!

Australian women on AWAs who work part time earn $3.70 less per hour or $85.10 less per week for an average 23 hours a week than those on collective agreements. This is ABS data, so we cannot accept Minister Hockey saying, ‘It’s very difficult to compare one agreement with another when all of the clauses should be disclosed.’ This is ABS data that every government department relies on to do its planning. It is accepted data. It is robust data. Australian women who work as casuals— (Time expired)

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a sad day when the Australian Labor Party views good news as bad news. I hope everyone who listens to the proceedings today and reads about the proceedings today will remember that the party that used to stand for Australian workers, who gave up that right a decade ago, are using this chamber and the other place to attack job growth. For their own dirty political ends, they are attacking an outcome that has been good for Australian workers and Australian families—

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Parry interjecting—

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, and for the country. Why is it totally beyond you to acknowledge good news? Why does Senator Webber come into this place today and completely abuse the statistics regarding women? Just for the record, I will go through the situation in relation to women’s wages, and hopefully Senator Webber, in the time that she is still in the chamber, will take good note of this. Since the government came to office, the hourly gender earnings ratio has averaged 88.9 per cent compared with an average of 86.8 per cent under the previous Labor government. Indeed, the World Economic Forum’s latest Global gender gap report 2006 described Australia as:

... leaders in closing the gender gap.

In addition, data from the OECD publication Women and men in OECD countries show that Australia’s gender wage gap is significantly below the OECD average and other similar countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

What is this bad news that Senator Webber is talking about today? What is this bad news in relation to women’s employment? I will tell you what the bad news is: female employment is up by 113,500 people in the last 12 months. That is the reality of the situation.

The other matter I want to raise is in relation to job security—and I have heard Senator Carr and Senator Ludwig talk about this, and I have heard other people from the Labor Party talking about it. Job security is the mantra that underpins their attack on Work Choices. I invite the Labor Party to read the ‘Features’ section in the Australian today and look at what is written about job security. Before I go to that, I want to talk about the Bracks Labor government, who are proudly talking about spending hundreds of thousands of Victorian taxpayers’ dollars on industrial relations. This is the same state government that have seen cost blow-outs in relation to the so-called fast rail project and the Southern Cross Station—you name it. These matters have involved a gross abuse of their position as a state government and they intend abusing it further in relation to these advertisements. Just quickly, I want to quote this Australian article for senators. It states:

There is no hard and fast measure of job security. The official labour force survey offers the best clue and here the message favours the Howard Government.

At the end of 2005, in the final days of the old workplace regime, 96.5 per cent of employees could expect to be working the following month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics found. The proportion of employees who became unemployed was 0.9 per cent, while the remaining 2.6 per cent dropped out of the labour force. By any reckoning, this was a pro-worker labour market.

A year later, the hourly number that shifted was a fraction fewer employees became unemployed—

(Time expired)

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always a matter of some humour to me to have to follow the pompous ravings from the defeated member from Ballarat.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wasn’t defeated, you twit.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think you just ran away, didn’t you? What we have heard today is a great deal of talk from this government about its so-called reform agenda. But what we have also seen is that the Productivity Commission, a group of people that is well known for its modest, moderate and extremely cautious language when it comes to defending the government’s policies, has brought forward a report on Australia’s science and innovation system, Public support for science and innovation. I notice that the minister, in a sort of John Mortimer’s ‘Soapy’ Ballard presentation that we had today, tried to explain that this was really a good report for the government. If you actually read this document, you will find that the Productivity Commission has highlighted the fact that our $6 billion public funding for science and research is in need of a major overhaul. Reading directly from the summary of the key points on page 16 of the report, the Productivity Commission draws our attention to the need for ‘major improvements’:

Major improvements are needed in some key institutional and program areas.

It goes on to point out that there are ‘notable shortcomings in business programs’. I repeat: this is from the Productivity Commission, one of the great bastions of support for this government’s economic policies. It is now saying to us that there are ‘notable shortcomings’ in the government’s business research and development program.

The Productivity Commission goes on to point out that the R&D tax concession needs a major overhaul. It also points out that the CRC program needs to be restored to its original policy objectives—policy objectives, I might note, laid down by Labor—and return to the proposition of public-good research. It goes on to say that, with these new changes that the government has introduced, there are major ‘problems in the governance and intellectual property frameworks of universities, weaknesses in their commercial arms and shortcomings in proof-of-concept funding’. And this is the most damning of all the criticisms it makes of public sector research and development:

However, the pursuit of commercialisation for financial gain by universities, while important in its own right, should not be to the detriment of maximising the broader returns from the productive use of university research.

The Productivity Commission is drawing our attention to the failure of the government’s cargo cult mentality when it comes to the commercialisation of research. The report continues:

The structure of funding for higher education research has increasingly eroded the share of block grants. Further erosion would risk undermining their important role in enabling meaningful strategic choices at the institutional level.

So the basic role of universities of educating people and providing people trained in research—scientists, technicians and the various other personnel who underpin our whole innovation system—is being put at risk, not to mention the fundamental role of our universities and public research agencies to address the problems faced by society and find solutions to those problems.

Finally, the Productivity Commission draws our attention to this:

The costs of implementing the Research Quality Framework may well exceed the benefits.

This is the rolled gold, newly minted research program that the government are spending $87 million to put in place. Yet their very own Productivity Commission is now telling us that the cost of implementing the Research Quality Framework may well exceed the benefits.

When it comes to research policy, it is quite clear the government has failed. It has adopted a cargo cult mentality to commercialisation. It has presumed that the rest of the world is not spending, the rest of the world is not moving forward, and that it can just set and forget our research programs and hope other countries to do the same. That is not happening. We are falling behind the rest of the world. We have a situation where China is now doubling its R&D every couple of years, the Europeans and Canadians are setting targets of three per cent of GDP by 2010, and we are on 1.8 per cent. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.