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

I did see the remarks attributed to His Eminence, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, last night on television. Let me say that I do not entertain the concerns expressed by the Cardinal. The basis of that is that this government has been a good friend of the low paid in this country. I might say that measured by some of the principles of both more broadly Christian social justice and more specifically Catholic social justice, this government has been a good friend of the low paid in the Australian community. In fact, more Australians have jobs under this government than was the case 10 years ago.

It is true that the rich have got richer in this country over the last 10 years, but they have not got richer at the expense of the poor. Most of the studies that have been carried out produce evidence on some occasions—indeed, to the great surprise of the researchers—that the low paid enjoy a higher relative increase in their position than people in the middle and at the upper end. Any fair analysis of our family benefits system will reveal that low-paid, single-income families, including single parents, have, relatively speaking, been the best endowed of all as a result of the family tax benefit and welfare policies that have been introduced.

I remind all of those who follow this debate that, when we introduced our industrial relations reforms 10 years ago, people said that all sorts of terrible things were going to occur. They have not occurred. In fact, we have seen real wages go up by 16.8 per cent, we have seen unemployment fall to a 30-year low and we have seen 1.8 million new jobs created. It is my confident prediction that, just as the doomsaying of the Labor Party 10 years ago was proved wrong, so the doomsaying of the Labor Party in 2006 will by 2016, and through the 10 years to then, also be proved wrong.

See this speech in context