Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

When the Leader of the Opposition came out on the weekend with his policy on advertising, he neatly tucked in that it would not just be the federal government that would have all its ads sent to the Auditor-General; it would be state governments as well. I thought, ‘Hang on, there’s no power to do that.’ How would you do that? How would you get state governments to send all their advertising to the federal Auditor-General? Over the last 10 years, state Labor governments have spent two and a half times the amount on advertising that we have spent federally. Last year alone, New South Wales and Victoria spent more money on advertising for state Labor governments than we spent for the whole nation federally. Why would the Leader of the Opposition try to refer state advertising to the federal Auditor-General? So I went back to this press release from Rob Hulls. I thought to myself, ‘This guy is sitting on television, radio and press advertisements to campaign against and to spread untruths about the federal workplace relations system.’ And do you know what I bet? I bet he is going to try to run them during the federal election campaign. That is what he is going to try to do. Immediately in the lead-up to the federal election campaign, we are going to see state Labor governments, together with the union bosses, running yet another campaign which will try to create untruths and mislead the Australian people about the workplace relations system.

Finally, I say this. The Labor Party think they are cute in suggesting that ‘Work Choices’ is a name that will not be used in the chamber. We will use it; it is a policy we believe in. Work Choices has helped to deliver higher wages, more jobs and fewer strikes. It is no accident, after the Labor Party were predicting Armageddon, that Bill Shorten—a Labor candidate who will be contesting a safe Labor seat—has said that there will be mass sackings. It is no accident that, since their predictions went awry, since they went wrong, in fact 326,000 new jobs have been created. Since Work Choices, 85 per cent of those new jobs are full time; wages are up; and strikes are at the lowest level since 1913. It is no accident.

But you know what? We have a system in place called the workplace relations system, which is governed by the 1996 Workplace Relations Act. Now we are going to have a Workplace Authority which will operate the workplace information line, assisted by the Workplace Ombudsman. I am the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and the Labor Party do not like it because the Labor Party want to tell the Australian people lies. When we go about telling the Australian people what their rights are at work, as defined by the law, as protected by the law, the Labor Party do not like it because they want to be the ones to define the law and that is where they failed. (Time expired)

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