Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development, Local Government and Territories) | Hansard source

At a time when Australia faces clear productivity challenges, this parliament should be asking a simple question of every piece of legislation—will it lift productivity or will it lower it? Productivity is not an abstract economic concept. It is the foundation of higher wages, lower costs, which Australians need during Labor's homegrown cost-of-living crisis, and stronger living standards for Australian families. The procurement provisions in this bill fail the productivity test. Australia's 20-year average labour productivity growth has fallen from 1.8 to 0.8 per cent, more than half. The Reserve Bank of Australia has revised medium-term productivity growth down to 0.7 per cent per year. Under Labor, five of the last seven quarters have seen negative GDP, gross domestic product, per capita. What that means in everyday terms is that, even as the economy struggles to grow, population growth is running too fast—migration, anyone? Living standards are also slipping consequently.

Despite lagging productivity and falling living standards, Labor's plan is to abandon the fight against the inflation dragon, step aside from governing and let unions like the CFMEU take charge. That is what the Albanese government is wanting to do—bring the CFMEU to Canberra, because that has worked so well in Victoria! This bill does two very different things. It is yet another cunning Labor piece of 'wedge-islation', a term that the current prime minister used when he was Leader of the Opposition. And he stated repeatedly that he would not be doing this very thing—wedging a less controversial aspect of the IR law with a highly controversial one. The PM misled Australia again by promising not to wedge the coalition in bringing legislation to the House with tricky double purposes, but here we are.

First, and less controversially, this bill introduces practical reforms to help the Fair Work Commission manage a growing and increasingly complex caseload—fair enough. The coalition does not have a problem with this aspect. The evidence is clear: the Fair Work Commission's workload is projected to increase by over 70 per cent within three years, with 40 to 50 per cent of applications involving AI assisted claims. In that environment, measures to streamline processes, dismiss unmeritorious claims earlier and improve administrative efficiency are sensible reforms. As I say, we in the coalition support them.

But the second part of the bill is entirely different. The bill would allow the Albanese government to preference employers with enterprise agreements in procurement, in grants, in other contracts, preferring businesses that have—get this!—union arrangements. What a surprise! What a surprise to everyone on the coalition benches! 'Nothing to see here.' Let's be honest: this provision has nothing to do with productivity or efficiency; it is a kickback to Labor's union backers. Labor proposes using taxpayer funded procurement to advance the union franchise. In Albanese's socialist dystopia, this is a fundamental—

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