Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, my question is to the Minister for Employment, Senator Abetz. Can the minister advise the Senate how the government's workplace relations legislation reform package will improve national productivity and boost economic growth?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bernardi for the question. I am sure Senator Bernardi and most other senators would be aware of recent comments by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. She said:

… more focus in general on the job market reforms and on more opportunities delivered by the job markets will actually help us reach the double objective of both growth and jobs.

It is for these precise objectives of both growth and jobs that the government has introduced its workplace relations legislation reform package.

The former Labor government radically re-regulated the labour market, strapping our economy into a pre-Keating straitjacket and setting the time machine back to the 1970s. Only recently we had the revelation of a secret meeting at Kirribilli in 2011 when, according to Paul Kelly in Triumph and Demise, Ms Gillard gave the unions everything they wanted. Passing the Fair Work amendment bill will boost investment in new projects, creating new jobs while safeguarding workers' conditions. Re-establishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission will improve productivity in an industry that has suffered a sevenfold increase in the number of days lost to industrial action under Labor. A more sensible and fair workplace relations system is vital to insure Australia against any external shocks or constraints to the economy. Inaction on workplace relations reform is simply not an option.

The IMF, the B20 and the Australian government are all speaking with one voice. If Australia implements sensible labour market reform, it will improve national productivity, economic growth and create future prosperity— (Time expired)

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Would the minister be kind enough to inform the Senate of any more support from unexpected quarters for the government's sensible approach to improving the Fair Work laws?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, no less an authority than the former ACTU president and Labor cabinet minister Martin Ferguson said:

The Fair Work Act must be revised, especially in regard to major resource project construction.

Senator Wong can turn her back on the fact that a doyen of the labour movement has come to that conclusion, but it does not change the fact.

Commenting on exorbitant wage claims and the resources industry, Mr Ferguson said:

… it is time that some [union leaders] recognised that their members’ real interests are aligned with their long-term job security.

And Professor Andrew Stewart, the architect of Labor's Fair Work laws, said, 'We will hear a lot about this as a return to Work Choices and AWAs'—

Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because that is what it is!

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'This is nothing of the sort', he said, Senator Lines. He said:

Even if you are looking to see if they are doing anything sneaky, it is a pretty straightforward implementation—

(Time expired)

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr President, I ask a further supplementary question. Would the minister please inform the Senate of any further statements in support of the government's workplace relations reform agenda?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Professor Stewart went on to say that our bill is a pretty straightforward implementation of the recommendations of Mr Bill Shorten's own Fair Work Act review panel. Responding to Mr Shorten's misleading claims that the government's proposed changes to IFAs would result in penalty rates being traded off for pizzas, even Professor Ron McCallum, a person hand-picked by Labor to review the Fair Work laws, said:

I don't think that the proposal of the Coalition in relation to IFAs means—

listen to this, Senator Cameron—

an automatic go back to Work Choices.

So nobody believes the mantra of Senator Cameron or Senator Lines about these reforms.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left!

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

These are reforms that are needed for the economy and which will help to create jobs, and that is our task and that is what we will continue to do. (Time expired)