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

As I said in answer to a question without notice I was asked yesterday, choice is a golden thread that runs through the policies of the Liberal and National parties. It is not a golden thread that runs through either the policies or the practices of the Australian Labor Party, as we were reminded of in such an absurd fashion in South Australia at the weekend. Let me say in answer to the member for Blair that under Work Choices there is enormous choice available to Australian employers and employees. Let me illustrate this: since Work Choices began, over 400,000 people, in a little over six months, have entered into Work Choices agreements. Some of them are AWAs, some of them are non-union collective agreements and some of them are union collective agreements.

I regrettably have to inform the House that, if Labor were to win the next election, that choice would disappear. There would be two hammer blows struck against choice by a Labor government. The first is that, under Labor’s compulsory union collective bargaining policy, the choice for people to stand out and have AWAs would disappear.

See this speech in context