Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk on the appropriation bills. I welcome the opportunity to highlight the government’s achievements and, in particular, to refute some of the claptrap that has been peddled by the unions and the ALP about the workplace reforms. The 2006-07 budget brings into focus for all of us to see that what has been achieved over the last 10 years by the coalition government is quite remarkable.

In my recent newsletter I put in a scale which reviewed 36 fiscal and social measures, which I then benchmarked against the performance of the previous Hawke and Keating governments. There were improvements in all of them, and they have gone on to materially improve the quality of life of all Australians. Let me detail some of the achievements. For the first time in a generation, our unemployment rate in Australia has fallen below five per cent—a wonderful example of the success of the government’s economic policies. Huge contributing factors are the economic and workplace reforms we undertook upon winning government. Quite simply, our modern day prosperity would never have come without tax and industrial relations reforms. It is not all about industrial relations; it is about the whole economy. Industrial relations, though important, is just one part of that.

Let us look at some of the very telling and damning comparisons between the current coalition government and the previous Hawke-Keating Labor governments. Under the coalition government, average mortgage rates have been 7.15 per cent; under Labor, 12.75 per cent. Under Labor, 197,800 people were unemployed; under this government, 100,100 are unemployed, despite the increase in population. Under this government real wages growth has been 16.8 per cent; under the previous Labor government, it was 0.3 per cent. The coup de grace is the number of days lost per thousand workers in industrial disputes. There have been 64 days lost per thousand workers under this government and 193 days were lost per thousand workers under the Labor government, which is more than three times as many.

I have already touched on the stellar employment record, but to put some real sense into this, let me tell you about Bundaberg’s Centrelink lines. I monitor these very closely. I deliberately publish them every month in both Bundaberg and Gladstone. Whether they are good or bad for the government, I provide them to the papers. Sometimes they choose not to use them, but they are always provided. Since the coalition came to power in 1996, Bundaberg’s dole queues have been cut almost in half, from 5,864 in April 1996—the first month after we came to power—down to 2,961 in April this year. That is half. For a city which has always struggled with a difficult reputation in terms of jobs, that is an outstanding achievement.

You might recall, Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, coming from a sugar seat, that Bundaberg, the Tweed, the western suburbs of Sydney and the Mersey region of Tasmania are always the worst four areas for unemployment in Australia—but not so anymore. The environment that has been created in Bundaberg and Gladstone by this government has made a material difference to the number of people who are unemployed. Would you now say to the 3,000-odd people who are in permanent unemployment: ‘We’d like to go back to the old employment regime. That will be much better for you’? Do you think they would want that? No way in the world.

It is the fraudulent approach by the unions and Labor towards the latest raft of reforms to our industrial relations system that really angers me. The ongoing anti-Work Choices campaign that has been spearheaded by the unions is totally dishonest in its approach. The unions have particularly targeted my electorate with this anti-IR reform campaign. A handful of union reps have written letters to the editor, spruiking a lot of fallacies and falsehoods.

See this speech in context