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

I thank the member for La Trobe for his question. Let me note, in thanking the member for La Trobe, that in March 1996 unemployment in La Trobe was 6.2 per cent. I am now happy to report it is only 3.4 per cent. One of the reasons unemployment in La Trobe is lower is that this government has reformed Australia’s industrial relations system. One of the reasons unemployment in La Trobe would go up if a Labor government were elected at the end of this year is that the Labor Party, under pressure from the union movement, would destroy the industrial relations reforms of the last 11 years.

What is really at stake when you talk about industrial relations in this country is the maintenance of a 33-year low in unemployment. If you go through the last 11 years and look at the three episodes of industrial relations reform—in 1996, in 1998 with the waterfront and again in 2006—all of those reforms contributed enormously to reducing Australia’s unemployment level. We now have the lowest unemployment rate in 33 years. We have seen real wages rise by 20.8 per cent since 1996, compared to a reduction of 1.8 per cent when the unions last ran Australia under the Hawke and Keating Labor governments.

Incredibly enough, despite this record, and despite the fact that we now have fewer strikes in Australia than at any time since 1913—despite all those facts—the union movement is insisting that if Labor wins the next election then the industrial relations reforms that have contributed so much to reducing unemployment must be reversed. I cannot think of anything more calculated to damage the confidence of the small business sector of Australia, which employs so many people, than the determination of the Labor Party, at the behest of the union movement, to abolish the unfair dismissal changes that we brought in 15 months ago. Those unfair dismissal changes have literally emboldened small business to take on more staff. There can be no other explanation for the extraordinary statistic that tells us that, in the last year, the number of long-term unemployed in this country has fallen by 23 per cent, and the number of long-term unemployed—let me tell the Leader of the Opposition—is now at its lowest level since the statistic first began to be compiled more than 20 years ago. This is a result of small business knowing that it is free from the trauma of dealing with unreasonable, unfair dismissal laws.

But the union movement wants to change all of that. A document has come into my possession, which is euphemistically entitled Federal election 2007: union political strategy manual 6 steps. That is the description of it. The real description is: this is the dirty tricks manual which is designed—

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