Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Is the minister aware of Minister Hockey’s claim:

The evidence now clearly illustrates that small business has embraced our Work Choices changes.

Minister, didn’t a recent survey in relation to the Work Choices legislation by Drake International of 300 companies reveal that 39 per cent of employers were unaware of their legal obligations about record keeping, 57 per cent believed the record-keeping requirements would negatively affect their business, 62 per cent said it would adversely affect their staff morale, 55 per cent believed it would negatively affect company culture and 52 per cent said it would have a possible impact on workplace productivity? Minister, why is your government so keen to avoid the facts about Work Choices?

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

Can I inform the Government Whip to take the next dorothy dixer to me off the questions list! There is no doubt that one of the great features of Work Choices has been what it has done for small business in this community. If we want to look at surveys, the greatest survey of all is the employment survey: 263,000 of our fellow Australians are now in employment since Work Choices. For youth unemployment since Work Choices has come in: a 0.8 per cent decrease. For the very long term unemployed what does the survey show? A 25 per cent decrease. And so the statistics go on and on, showing the great benefits to our fellow Australians who previously had been left on the social scrap heap of unemployment—something which those opposite excelled in when they had over one million of our fellow Australians on that scrap heap.

When we came to government we said we would devote ourselves to reducing the unemployment rate. We have taken strong, tough decisions, sometimes in the short term unpopular; but in the long term they have delivered social justice. The greatest social justice initiative that any government can provide is a job to its citizens.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senators on my left: come to order!

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

The number of small businesses in Australia was 1.88 million in June 2006, which is an increase from the June 2003 figure of 1.79 million. So what we are seeing is the growth of small business. Why is small business growing? Is it because of all the negative impacts of the Howard government? Can I suggest to those opposite: no, it is because we have gone about creating an environment where small business can prosper. What is more, it is prospering; and, what is more, when small businesses prosper they generate jobs.

On the statistics to which the honourable senator refers, I do not know where she got them from but I am always wary of how the Labor Party gets statistics and seeks to interpret them. In recent times I was provided with a survey of 7,426 employers taken nationally by Hudsons and if I were to pick one figure out I could say that, out of that survey, 5.8 per cent of businesses expect to reduce their workforce. Well, that is a sad thing, isn’t it? But that is only a very infinitesimal amount of the picture. The other part of the picture is that 40 per cent of businesses expect to add to their headcount in April-June 2007. So what you can do is selectively cite certain statistics to try to skew it one way or the other way. What I invite the Australian people to do is simply look at the Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys which show 263,700 of our fellow Australians are now in employment as a result of the policies that we have taken—no thanks to those opposite.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Doesn’t the Drake International survey dispel the Howard government’s claims to be a friend of small business? Isn’t your defence of Work Choices more about spin rather than facts?

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

The survey may well have been undertaken by Drake, but can I suggest to the Labor Party they ought be ducking for cover because when the actual facts come out they will be left without a feather to fly. There are 263,700 Australians who know that the sort of spin that the Labor Party are trying to put on Work Choices just does not wash.