Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister outline to the House how ongoing economic reform maintains a strong economy, meaning more jobs and higher pay for all Australians? Is the Prime Minister aware of any alternative views?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I ask that, just as you ruled the Prime Minister’s last question out of order, you rule this out of order because it is quite clearly ironical, which is against the standing orders.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Grayndler will resume his seat. The question is in order. I call the Prime Minister.

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

There is nothing ironic about the fact that real wages have gone up under this government by 16.8 per cent. There is nothing ironic about the fact that unemployment—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Childcare) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Plibersek interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Sydney is warned!

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

has fallen to a 30-year low. One of the things that has underpinned this remarkable performance by the Australian economy has been the industrial relations reforms of this government. Those reforms of 10 years ago, which the Labor Party said would destroy the living standards of Australia, have enhanced the living standards of Australia. One of the features is of course the introduction of Australian workplace agreements—those same workplace agreements that the Leader of the Opposition said in October last year that you could not get rid of. Yet eight months later the Leader of the Opposition, in his speech to the ALP conference in Sydney at the weekend, said that, if he became Prime Minister, he would get rid of Australian workplace agreements. In the process he is committing himself to reducing the living standards of hundreds of thousands of Australian workers. He is attacking the aspirational, the workers of the outer suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne. He is taking on the hopes and the aspirations of hundreds of thousands of people in this country who want to negotiate free of union interference, who do not believe they need a union supervisor beside them to look after their own best interests. The Labor Party’s policy announced at the weekend is all about handing back total control of Australia’s industrial relations system to the trade union movement of this country. The Leader of the Opposition’s logic is that a movement that has only 20 per cent of the participants in the private sector of the Australian workforce should control 100 per cent of the deals that are made between Australian workers and their employers.

The real explanation for the decision that was announced by the Leader of the Opposition is not job security for Australians but job security for the Leader of the Opposition. He should have taken the advice of his highly successful British counterpart, Tony Blair, the leader of the British Labour Party, in a famous speech to the British Trades Union Congress on 9 September 1997. I have quoted that speech before, but I think it is worth quoting again. He famously said:

You should remember in everything you do that fairness at work starts with the chance of a job in the first place ...

That is not an attitude that the Leader of the Opposition has ever been particularly interested in, because he has never displayed a great deal of interest in the unemployed. One of the most revealing interviews of his life was given on The 7.30 Report on 6 May 1993, when unemployment had reached almost 11 per cent and he was the minister for employment. The interviewer had this to say:

So this group—

the unemployed—

are being told, in their twenties, by society, effectively: You’re the losers; go to the scrap heap.

The Leader of the Opposition said in reply:

Well, those who haven’t made it into work and who are among the long-term unemployed, that’s a reasonable statement.

In other words, with 11 per cent unemployed, with his government having been in power for 10 years, he cared not a jot about the unemployed. He does not care about the unemployed now. He did not care about them then. Not caring about the unemployed was bad enough, but at the weekend he added another group he does not care about: the strivers and the aspirational people of Australia—the people who want to do better, the people who want to work harder. They want rewards for that hard work and they want to make their own decisions about their future. I have another piece of advice for the Leader of the Opposition, and it is to be found in the same speech made by Mr Tony Blair to the Trades Union Congress on 9 September 1997. As I read this part of the speech, I thought of the New South Wales ALP conference. This is what Mr Blair had to say:

The old ways of the Labour Party were the resolutionists, the committee rooms, the fixing and the small groups trying to run the show.

That is what happened at the weekend. There was a meeting between Mr Beazley and Mr Robertson of Unions NSW, and out of that came the big flip-flop of the Leader of the Opposition that has resulted in his absurd attack on the aspirations of hundreds of thousands of Australians.