Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. I refer the minister to the recent report by Anthony Forsyth of Monash University which confirms that the Howard government’s extreme industrial relations laws have made it easier for large employers to sack workers. Doesn’t this report show that the Work Choices laws include a catch-all exemption which allows large employers to sack workers for so-called ‘operational reasons’ without any requirement of fairness? Isn’t it the case that since Work Choices started the Australian Industrial Relations Commission has thrown out nearly three in five cases where employers cited operational reasons for sacking staff without even considering other circumstances of the dismissal? Could the minister explain how making it easier to sack hardworking employees is good for Australian working families?

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

It ill behoves a union dominated Australian Labor Party in this place to talk about hardworking employees being dismissed when the trade union’s record of doing exactly that has been in the media day after day after day during the parliamentary recess. Indeed, within my relatively small home state of Tasmania, there are at least two such places. So, if Senator Wong, the Labor Party and the trade union movement want to get in on this debate, they have to come into it with clean hands—which they clearly do not have. Of course, to make their assertion, who do they rely on? Anthony Forsyth. Interesting. I wonder who used to engage Anthony Forsyth. A guess: it might be a trade union—the Transport Workers Union? Senator Conroy can confirm that I am spot-on.

These independent reports that the Labor Party keep flicking out time after time are not independent reports. They are from trade union operatives, and it is on that basis that I would invite all Australians who have the misfortune to be listening in to this broadcast to consider what the actual facts are. The actual facts are that the Labor Party want to concentrate on this union operative’s report because they do not want to talk about the fantastic employment results for the month of August.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

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

You don’t want to talk about it. The Labor Party do not want to talk about that because it undermines their dishonest campaign when our industrial relations changes have seen the lowest rate of industrial disputation since records were first kept in this country—the lowest rate. There has also been a 20 per cent increase in real wages under 11 years of the Howard government, whereas, under 13 years of Labor, they were only able to deliver about 1.8 per cent. That is the compare and contrast.

Whilst Labor presided over one million of their fellow Australians on the unemployment socioeconomic scrap heap, we now have it down to 4.3 per cent—a figure that not even the Labor Party or, indeed, our most keen supporters would have agreed that we could have achieved. But we have achieved that result. Why? Because one of the hallmarks of the Howard-Costello government has been its willingness to take the tough decisions for the long-term benefits. Before those who are sitting over there get a bit too excited about that, they might like to check their wires in relation to what is happening in Queensland.

The reality is that these reports unfortunately do the Labor Party no credit. What they show is that, if Labor were ever to be given the privilege of governing this country, they would surround themselves with pseudoacademics from the trade union movement to try to spin their story when the facts, the raw numbers and the objective data clearly show more Australians are in work than ever before, they have increased wages like never before and they are in circumstances where industrial disputation is at the lowest level ever experienced by this country. So much for the industrial disharmony that the Labor Party asserts exists.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I note that the minister did not deny at any point in his answer that the government’s Work Choices laws make it easier for large employers to sack people. Can the minister explain why making it easier to sack people is good for Australian workers? Minister, aren’t these laws the reason why the study reports say there is a perception in the business community that they now have much greater freedom to dismiss workers? Could the minister explain why the Howard government believes hardworking Australians should be denied basic entitlements such as severance pay?

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

If such a false perception does exist in the community, can I say that the workers have only one group to thank for that: the false advertising campaign of the ACTU that claims that employers can do that. In handling claims, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission has to be satisfied that the employer’s operational reasons, to which the senator is referring, are genuine before it rules that the employee’s unfair dismissal claim is excluded. So if there is misinformation within the community, can I say two things: firstly, it shows the unfortunate cut-through that the ACTU’s dishonest campaign has had; and, secondly, it shows the need for genuine information to get out to the community so that employers are not potentially misled by that false information. (Time expired)