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

I quote:

I’ve negotiated numerous agreements where we’d negotiate, say, an all-up payment, an all-up rate in lieu of, you know, penalty rates for working shiftwork or weekends.

In other words, ‘We’ve negotiated them away in return for something that’s fair.’ That was said by none other than Greg Combet, the current Secretary of the ACTU. I know that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has a brief on this, and I know that she did a deal with the unions that completely excluded the interests of many of the wealth creators of this country. As a result, we now have the Labor Party committed to a return of union domination of the industrial relations system. As Heather Ridout of the Australian Industry Group said, the debate about AWAs, important though it may be, has obscured the fact that the real poison in Labor’s industrial relations policy is the return of the dominance of collective bargaining. And what Labor will bring back is a situation where, wanted or not, a union having award coverage over a particular workplace will be able to inject itself into a negotiation at that workplace, to the detriment of the interests of the workers and the employer.

I am proud of the industrial relations reforms that this government has made. I am proud of the Reith reforms. I am proud of the fact that the destructive and uncompetitive behaviour of the MUA—

See this speech in context