Chris Hayes (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate on the member for Ryan’s motion about marriage and I actually feel somewhat more than half qualified to do so. On 22 May I celebrated with my wife our 30th wedding anniversary. Bernadette and I have been married for 30 years and over those three decades she has been not only my wife but the mother of our three children and the very proud grandmother of three—soon to be four as of 1 July, I think it is. Over that whole period—since school actually—Bernadette has been my best friend. As a matter of fact, when we got married Bernadette was 19 and I was 20, so we have actually grown up together. So I do feel very strongly about the institution of marriage and its impact on families. That is why I welcome the opportunity to speak here today.

By and large, families are underpinned by successful marriages, but I want to say how regrettable it is that every year we have in excess of 50,000 divorces. That is more than one in three marriages unfortunately ending up on the rocks. Whilst we have supportive facilities such as relationship centres and good counselling and family support services, they have one thing in common: they are there to help pick up the pieces after the deleterious effects of modern life have wreaked carnage on modern marriages and, as a consequence, significantly affected families.

As secretary of the caucus industrial relations task force, I have recently had the opportunity to visit many locations throughout the country. One of the things that were continually raised with task force members was the actual and perceived impacts that the industrial relations changes will have or are likely to have on families. Over the last three decades we have seen continual stresses on families as a consequence of changing working hours, particularly after the introduction of non-standard working hours. In 2002 the Prime Minister said that balancing family life and work was a priority of his government. As a matter of fact, he went on to describe that issue as ‘a barbecue stopper’. I know that term has been used once or twice today, but that is the way that he described the issue in 2002. I also note that at a recent breakfast Pru Goward, the federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, described balancing work and family life as an ‘epic struggle’—and clearly it is. That is why we are so concerned about the impact of these harsh industrial relations laws not only on individuals but also on families. Like the member for Ryan, I would be equally concerned about what they will do to marriages. We should be providing, as the motion says, positive policies to underpin and support the institution of marriage. I am all for that. We should be doing that. We should be looking at a set of policy frameworks that help support marriages and a diminution of the current divorce rate that we are experiencing. It is not something that we need to be very flash about in terms of how we position the words around it; it has to be something that we do.

If we are looking at track records, let us look at the one on Work Choices. This is something that we are poles apart on, given what is proposed. Mr Deputy Speaker, it is not just Chris Hayes who stands up to say this. Family after family visited the industrial relations task force to complain about the impacts that the industrial relations legislation will have on them, their relationship with their family and their being available for their family. People are very concerned about the likely impact this legislation will have on successful family life into the future.

I commend the member for Ryan for moving the motion. I think he has provided a service to the parliament and, therefore, I hope that he will join me in looking at a set of industrial frameworks that would support families into the future—(Time expired)

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