Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to speak on the appropriation bills and to acknowledge my electoral neighbour the member for Oxley, who has coined a saying in the House tonight: the new global currency is talent. I was looking across at him and thinking how penniless he must be and how lacking he must be in any attempt at credit transfers to his good self. He is from the smart state, but he should be subject to a product recall. I listened to each and every one of the things that he said today and it was another of those contributions from those opposite who cherry-pick various parts of this government’s efforts over the last 10 years to set up long-term future prosperity for Australia—not just simply the prosperity we are enjoying today but very much the long-term prosperity of Australians of this generation and those to come. Yet they hide the fact that, root and branch, as this government has embarked on setting a proper course for good reward for effort and establishing ourselves on a long-term footing, the Australian Labor Party have fought us tooth and nail all the way.

This was exposed yet again on the weekend by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who has now pledged that a future Labor government would abolish individual contracts. Individual contracts in the form of AWAs are very much a part of restoring a sense of trust in the workplace. They are an opportunity for individual workers or their representatives to talk to their employers and an opportunity for those with abilities and skills who have something to trade with their employers to gain additional advancements. The abolition of those individual contracts would have a direct impact on the long-term employment viability of people in Australia, particularly those in the trades, because people with trade skills are a much sought after commodity in this nation today and rightly so.

On this side of the House we are celebrating the fact that workers are able to get more money in their pay packets, while those on the other side want to see a return to an ‘everyone is paid the same’ kind of environment where no additional money is available to those with skills to trade to their employers. They want to restrict small businesses. I see my friend and colleague the Minister for Small Business and Tourism is in the House. She, like all of us on this side, is very concerned about Labor reinstituting their old unfair dismissal regime.

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