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

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle, for relieving me from the chair so I can give my senator statement.

Today, I want to focus on the extraordinary statement we heard from Mr Hockey four to five weeks ago in relation to housing prices. He said that what people actually needed to do was to get good jobs with good pay.

Recently, we have seen the unemployment statistics climbing under the Abbott government. They are at 6.3 per cent. Certainly in Western Australia, in certain parts of the metropolitan area, they are much higher than that. Of course youth unemployment is at disgusting levels, particularly in Mandurah.

If the government was really dinkum about this notion of good pay and good jobs, as we are on this side of the Senate, why wouldn't Senator Abetz earlier this week condemn Hutchison Ports authorities when they sought to sack almost 100 workers by text message? They were abolishing good jobs with good pay. No, he just goes on a rant about unions.

Of course these workers are members of the MUA. It is well known that when workers are members of trade unions their rates of pay are substantially higher. But the fact that Hutchison Ports workers are still agitating for their jobs—good jobs with good pay—seems to have just passed by the Abbott government. Apparently it is not those good jobs with that good pay—union jobs, in that case.

I want to turn again this week to the AMWU which has been bringing its members, shift workers from across this country, to the parliament time and time again. This is another group of workers with good jobs and good pay, but again they are not workers that the Abbott government seems to want to look after. We have seen the steadfast refusal, despite their election promise, to build submarines in South Australia, which obviously would provide these members of the AMU with good jobs and good pay. So, again, we are seeing that apparently the Abbott government believes: 'No, if you are a union member, we do not mean good jobs and good pay for you; we mean other people'. But we all know that, in order to make good jobs and to get good pay, people need to be members of trade unions.

It does not stop there. Again, there is this attack on the MUA and seafarers. In this case we have some shipping legislation amendments coming before the parliament. That bill is unashamedly about destroying another lot of good jobs with good pay. This is about saying to these workers: 'Your jobs will be gone, and any ship will be able to trade around the Australian coast'.

Let me just inform the Senate of what would happen. We would have foreign ships in our waters. The Abbott government likes to accuse us of being anti-foreign, anti-this and anti-that, but of course we are not. What Labor stands for and what we have a proven track record on is good jobs with good pay. This means that those foreign ships could bring foreign labour into Australian waters at any kind of pay; the kind of very low wages that we see in the Philippines or Korea or anywhere else, where foreign seafarers are low paid. That is the absolute intent of that shipping legislation amendment which will come before the parliament. That is about absolutely wrecking good jobs with good pay.

The other area where the Abbott government seems to be determined to destroy good jobs and good pay is through the ChAFTA agreement. Why would any government that supposedly is about good jobs and good pay agree to an agreement which says that—if the Chinese come to Australia—and of course Labor stands for trade. We absolutely stand for trade. We stand for Australians getting an opportunity to promote their goods and wares in China, and of course we understand that is reciprocal, but not when it goes to threaten the good jobs and good pay of Australian workers, which is what we understand will happen where there are Chinese projects over the value of $150 million. That is not a very large amount of money for a project. What will happen there is that foreign workers will be able to come in, and they certainly will not be getting good pay, and I doubt they will have good jobs. But that in and of itself threatens the good pay and the good jobs of Australian workers.

So, although Mr Hockey says, 'just get a good job with good pay', it is the Abbott government that is steadfastly going out and destroying those jobs, not standing up for port workers. Anyone, it would seem, except the Abbott government thinks it is quite a disgrace to receive a text at midnight and be told that your job has been taken, that you have been made redundant. Anybody would have some sympathy for those men and women—earning their living, paying off mortgages, educating their children—anyone with any kind of moral sense about them would think that was outrageous. But we have not seen one skerrick of sympathy or support for those workers. The Abbott government tries to wash its hands and say it is all about what is happening in the Fair Work Commission. It is more than that. A government that is dinkum about good pay and good jobs would be picking up the phone and asking what it can do to bring the parties together, and what it could do to salvage good jobs. But, no, they just turn it into another union-bashing exercise.

We should be proud in this country of good jobs and good pay. We should be proud that union members have worked hard and have given up benefits to provide those good jobs. But we see none of that from the Abbott government. They are hell-bent on destroying the good jobs that we have across our economy. Whether it is on the waterfront, whether it is seafarers, whether it is the construction industry, whether it is the warehouse workers who are currently on strike—Woolworths are threatening their good jobs with good pay—we do not see any support from the Abbott government for those workers, and that is disgraceful. So again we see a government not committed to looking at what it can do to make sure that Australians have that good pay with good jobs.

In the science area, we do not even have a science minister.

In fact, we have seen good jobs at the CSIRO disappear at the hands of the Abbott government. They are really determined to dumb down Australian jobs and to make them low paid. They somehow think that, if you take penalty rates from workers, that somehow provides better paying jobs. They really have no idea what they are doing across the job front or indeed in our economy. The sooner they are gone, the better off jobs and pay will be in this country.