Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on this motion put by the member for Chifley, because it gives me the opportunity to put into the trash can of rhetoric the Labor Party’s hypocrisy on Australian workplace agreements. Australian workplace agreements have been highly successful in improving the conditions and the lot of thousands of workers throughout Australia. In fact, the often touted line in this House is that this is a race to the bottom for wages. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, under workplace agreements, wages have risen considerably. Unemployment has bottomed. For example, in Australia at the moment unemployment levels are at 5.1 per cent. In my state of Western Australia, unemployment is at the absolutely outstanding level of 3.5 per cent. Which is the state in this country that has the most AWAs? Western Australia. I will go into the details electorate by electorate later.

The people opposite are in an industrial relations time warp. They want to go back to the dinosaur age of the 1980s and early 1990s when they had control of this country and they bragged about lowering wages and conditions. In fact, in the 13 years of the Labor government, we know that wages only rose in this country by 1.2 per cent. That compares to a more than 16 per cent growth in wages in the 10 years that the Howard government has been in place. Who has done best? Who has a proud boast on this issue? The Howard government. In the state of Western Australia, they offer employee-employer arrangements as industrial agreements in the workplace. They are only enlisting in those by the hundreds, yet, as we heard today from the Prime Minister, people have signed one million AWAs in this country.

Mr Beazley says that he wants to rip them up. I have news for Mr Beazley. In his electorate of Brand, there are 23,335 people on Australian workplace agreements. Putting that into context, in an electorate of about 80,000 people he has close to between one in three and one in four workers on AWAs. And he is saying to the people in his electorate of Brand, ‘I’m going to rip up your Australian workplace agreements, because our union bosses—our political masters, the unions in this country—have told us that we have to rail against them.’ Something like 17 per cent of people in the Australian workforce now belong to a union. There are more people now who run a small business than there are people who belong to a union. How out of date are the people on the other side of this House when they say, ‘Our political bosses and masters have told us that we’ve got to try and talk down Australian workplace agreements’—agreements which offer better terms and conditions?

They say, ‘If you don’t sign it, you’re in trouble.’ The bottom line is that that is not true. We know that the award is the safety net and that it is illegal to be forced to sign an Australian workplace agreement. If they try and make you sign an Australian workplace agreement, you go to the Office of Workplace Services. I will give the number: 1300724200. You will get up to $4,000 legal aid to fight your case if you have been harshly dealt with by this legislation. That is the truth of the matter.

Believe it or not, the electorate in South Australia with the highest number of AWAs is the seat of Adelaide. There are 11,250 in the seat of Adelaide. Those numbers have increased by 10 per cent since the new Work Choices legislation came in. In the electorate of the member for Chifley, who brought this motion on, there are 7,734 people on workplace agreements. The electorate in Queensland with the highest number of people on workplace agreements is the electorate of Dawson. There are 13,587 people on workplace agreements there. In Tasmania, the seat of Franklin has 7,097. The electorate in Victoria with the highest number is the seat of Melbourne, with 15,243. The electorate in New South Wales with the highest number is the seat of Sydney, with 11,861. As an aside, surprisingly, the electorate with the least is the seat of Shortland, with 803. I speak on behalf of my constituents. In the seat of Canning, there are 26,101 people on AWAs, which is an increase of more than 10 per cent since Work Choices came in.

In the edition of the West Australian that was brought to the attention of the House today, the miner Rob Davies said, ‘Keep your hands off my AWA.’ He said, ‘I’ve got a message for the unions and the Labor Party,’ who are hoping to win him over. He wants to keep his industrial agreement. ‘Keep your hands off my AWA.’ That is what workers want. (Time expired)

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