Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

And xenophobia. What an offensive remark! But back to scaremongering. We saw the hubris of the Treasurer in question time on jobs. The Treasurer cannot bring himself to mention the number 6.3, the percentage of unemployed, or 800,000, the number of people out of work under his government and his stewardship of the Australian economy. For us to call this government out on that is not scaremongering; it is doing our job. It is standing up for those 800,000 people and their families. It is standing up for them—something this government refuses to do.

Let us think about youth unemployment. Let us think about the tragedy that, in some parts of my electorate—and, I know, in my friend the member for Lalor's electorate—it is creeping up towards one in four young people out of a job, with no real plan for jobs from this government. This is a government that cut away supports like Youth Connections at a critical time of transition in manufacturing areas.

Let us also think about the anaemic wages growth that we have had for those who are in work. Minister Abetz, when he kicked off this great journey towards the Productivity Commission to try and resurrect Work Choices, spoke of a wages explosion. What a joke that is! How out of touch can this bloke be? This is, of course, the man who does not regard workers as anything more than disposable units, as he demonstrated so clearly—so starkly—in effectively endorsing the dismissal of 100 workers by text messages and emails sent just before midnight. It is treating people as commodities, not as human beings. Late last year he was rewarded for his bad behaviour by the Treasurer, who sent off Minister Abetz's Christmas wish list to the Productivity Commission just before Christmas, hoping nobody would notice.

Let us be clear about this. The Productivity Commission's terms of reference put everything that might matter to anyone who works for a living up for grabs. The draft report is worthy of consideration—although it is not of great interest to members opposite, it seems. It does contain an inconvenient truth. It recognises that the institutional framework we have is actually not too bad; it is working. It is working much better than its predecessor, in terms of productivity in particular. It also recognises that the labour market is not like other markets—a matter the member for Longman should have regard to. It recognises that it affects people's lives and their expectations for their future and for that of their families, and that, most often, employees alone are not as strong as employers in bargaining for reasonable workplace treatment. That is a matter that members opposite should reflect upon.

It is unfortunate that some recommendations of the Productivity Commission do not acknowledge this. I think about the pathway back to Work Choices in abandoning the better-off-overall test and the proposal for enterprise contracts. Let us be clear: whatever good is in the report, it is a dishonest road map back to Work Choices and back to the poverty of vision that this government and conservatives have had for 20 years for the world of work—to their lack of regard for the social compact, their lack of regard for jobs, and their lack of concern for inequality, despite the growing evidence that inequality is harmful for growth. Perhaps members opposite and the minister at the dispatch box should take a lesson from this contribution— (Time expired)

See this speech in context