David Jull (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. To what extent has the new workplace relations system been implemented? What has been the reaction to this new system?

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fadden for his question and his continued interest in the updating of workplace relations in Australia. I can report to him that the Work Choices legislation received royal assent on 14 December last year. Since then the government has moved to establish the new Australian Fair Pay Commission and has also appointed the Award Review Task Force. This indicates that the government has a clear plan for Australia’s future.

As part of the reaction we have the contrast of the Labor Party, which is squibbing about when it might release its policy. On 22 November last year the Leader of the Opposition promised to release a workplace relations policy this year. He said:

In terms of industrial relations, yes, we will, we’ll be doing that next year. At the moment we’re focussing on what the Government’s legislation is but we’re going to provide people with a very clear alternative.

When might we see this very clear alternative? Perhaps not for some time, because the Leader of the Opposition spoke at the National Press Club on 1 February. He said that they would need some time to see what the effects are. He said:

We will not, by the time we deliver this, have a full understanding of where the High Court is going to send their industrial relations legislation and nor will we have, because I don’t believe this will really start to kick in in terms of its effect on the Australian workforce probably until next year ...

Apart from being prolix, this is just nonsense. The Leader of the Opposition says to the National Press Club on 1 February, ‘We don’t know where this is going; we haven’t got a policy,’ yet repeatedly last year we heard him in this place saying he was going to rip up the Work Choices legislation. Nor does he need to wait, as he said in the National Press Club, to see the effects. If it is as bad as the Leader of the Opposition made out last year then he knows what the effects are.

Can I remind the House of some of the effects that were predicted by the Leader of the Opposition: no more weekend barbecues, a higher divorce rate in Australia, kids not seeing their parents at Christmas time—

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Global warming!

Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

global warming, Australian workplaces being South Americanised, the economic growth of Australia stopping, people not being able to pay their mortgages and the Australian way of life being destroyed. All of these things are the effects that the Leader of the Opposition said last year will be a consequence of the new Work Choices legislation. But when he goes along to the National Press Club this year he says, ‘Oh, no—we’ve got to wait and see the effects.’ The reality is that, when it comes to this policy, like any other policy, the Leader of the Opposition is clueless—no ideas, no policy and no leadership.