John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Let me say in reply to the member for Perth, firstly, that it is a fact that often questions asked by the opposition are not true. That is a fact. It is a fact that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition made a totally false set of assertions when she asked a question of me about Teys Bros. It is a fact that I am not, for the reasons that any reasonable person would understand, in possession of the employment details of every employment arrangement made in this country. But it is a fact that since this government have been in office we have created 1.8 million more jobs. It is a fact that real wages have risen by 16.8 per cent. It is a fact that that compares with wage rises of about one to two per cent in the 13 years of the previous Labor government. It is a fact that when we reformed the industrial relations laws 10 years ago we were told that they would drive down productivity, they would push up industrial disputes, they would push up unemployment and they would depress productivity. All of those claims were wrong. It is a fact that economic predictions made by the opposition are almost always totally false.

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