Mark Vaile (Lyne, National Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

and she happily acknowledges that they opposed them every inch of the way. There was a battle but it was a battle that we believed we had to win to ensure the efficiency of Australia and the competitiveness of our export industries and to generate jobs for the future. We do not have to go too far back into history to find a bit more form sitting on the front benches of the Labor Party. Regional Australians, particularly the beef producers in regional Australia, all remember the Mudginberri dispute back in the 1980s. It cost the beef industry millions of dollars. Who was the head of the ACTU then? None other than the member for Hotham. We well remember that battle in the Mudginberri dispute. It gives you an indication of the roots of the policy of the Labor Party. We know that the Leader of the Opposition is no great mate of Bill Ludwig’s, but I am sure that the tentacles reach in there somewhere. There is one more example we need to give. When the member for Batman left the presidency of the ACTU in 1996 there were 928,000 days of work lost per annum in the Australian economy. That was the rate of industrial disputes in 1996. Today it is down to 132,000. When the member for Batman was last the President of the ACTU it was 928,000.

With the advent of more representation coming into the Labor Party from the ACTU and the union movement, we know in which direction industrial relations policy is going to go. It is not going to go in the direction of assisting small businesses in the electorate of Cowper to put on more people and generate economic growth. If the voters in Australia want to support job creators, they need to support the coalition government.

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