Phillip Barresi (Deakin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. Is the Prime Minister aware of any evidence that the economy will suffer if Australian workers lose the freedom of choice currently available to them under Work Choices? Are there any alternative views, and how do they compare with government policies?

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

Not only am I aware of the damage that would be done by taking away Australian workplace agreements but so is the Australian Mines and Metals Association, an association that represents a section of the Australian economy which, according to the member for Perth—who is the spokesman for the Labor Party on these matters—is responsible for the boom economic conditions we are experiencing particularly in Western Australia. According to this association, which represents the mining industry, removing workplace agreements would cost $6.6 billion a year. That is the cost to the mining industry. This is not my figure; it is not the figure of the ABS; it is the figure of the Australian Mines and Metals Association.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Crean interjecting

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

In 2004, Access Economics, the preferred economic modeller of the Australian Labor Party, had this to say after it released a major study into the Labor Party’s industrial relations policy:

The likely outcome  is lower productivity growth and less accurate matching of wages and productivity at the enterprise level.

Yesterday, the Chief Operating Officer of Austral in Western Australia, one of the most outstanding examples of Australian incentive and ingenuity—located, I believe, in the electorate of Brand, represented by the Leader of the Opposition—

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Brendan O’Connor interjecting

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

said that the survival of the $529 million company depended on the AWA system. Let me say that again: the survival of one of Australia’s most successful export companies—

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Brendan O’Connor interjecting

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

The member for Gorton is warned!

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

depends upon the survival of the AWA system. He said:

This industry would not be here in Western Australia under a collective agreement.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Crean interjecting

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

The member for Hotham is also warned!

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

He said:

This industry would not be here in Western Australia under a collective agreement. Our product would be nowhere near as high. We would not be able to survive.

This is field evidence. This is evidence from people who know the industry. They know the value of workplace agreements. They know the poison that returning to collective agreements would represent for their industry. I say again that the plan of the Leader of the Opposition in relation to workplace agreements is a direct attack on aspirational Australia. It is a direct attack on the success stories of Australian industry. It is a direct attack on our export industries. As the member for Brand, the Leader of the Opposition ought to be ashamed that it is a direct attack on the prosperity of the great state of Western Australia.

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to the case of Emily Connor. Is the Prime Minister aware that until March this year Emily had been employed for five years as a child-care worker at the Blinky Bill child care centre in Canberra? Is the Prime Minister also aware that, two days after the government’s industrial relations legislation came into effect, Emily was called to her boss’s office, told her services were no longer required and given no reason for her dismissal? Isn’t it the case that Emily asked to say goodbye to the children in her care? She was told that if she did not leave in 10 minutes the police would be contacted to escort her from the premises. Prime Minister, what do you say to Emily, who now has no protection against such unfair and unconscionable treatment in the workplace?

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

I am not aware, nor could I be expected to be aware—

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms King interjecting

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

The member for Ballarat is warned!

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

of individual cases such as that. Thousands of people leave employment and gain employment all over Australia every week. But I am aware, and the Leader of the Opposition should be aware, of an article in the Australian Financial Review this morning written by an academic by the name of Don Harding that makes the point that, on a preliminary examination of the early figures on the behaviour of the workforce since the introduction of the new industrial relations legislation, there is absolutely no evidence of the mass sackings of which the Labor Party is so ready to speak. Indeed, the preliminary indications are that the employment outlook has actually got better since the Work Choices legislation was introduced. I know that will be intensely disappointing to the Leader of the Opposition, because he has been hoping and praying for a deterioration in the figures. He always wants bad economic news in the hope that he can use it in propaganda against this government.

I do not know the circumstances of that individual. In the question of a similar kind that he asked me yesterday, he did not disclose to the House the fact that the lady to whom he referred was entitled to bring a claim for unlawful dismissal. I invite the Leader of the Opposition to get up in this House and deny any knowledge that she was bringing a claim for unlawful dismissal, because the source of the information that came to me was a union. I find it hard to believe that, if I can find out from the union, the Leader of the Opposition, who does everything they want, could not also find out from the union.

Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Would the Prime Minister advise the House of the benefits of Australian workplace agreements to workers? How would abolishing workplace agreements affect Australian workers?

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

Let me say in reply to that question that the abolition of Australian workplace agreements would not only damage companies but also damage hundreds of thousands of hardworking Australians. The proposal of the Leader of the Opposition to do away with them is a direct frontal attack on aspirational Australia. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released statistics which show that non-managerial employees are five per cent better off on AWAs than on collective agreements.

I have been asked what do I say to a particular case. Let me say, rhetorically: what do critics of the government’s policy, including of the opposition, say to Mr Eddie Belcher, a worker referred to in the West Australian this morning? He had a firm message to the Leader of the Opposition about the roll back of his AWA. He said:

Just try and take them away.

The Australian newspaper reported a Queensland coalminer, Graeme Ware, as seeing:

... no reason to return to union influence in setting awards.

The article reported that Mr Ware, a worker at the Sedgman coal washing plant at Nebo, west of Mackay, works four days on and three days off and earns more than $100,000 a year. They are the sorts of people that the Labor Party wants to do down. They are the sorts of people that the Labor Party wants to take a stick to. They are the sorts of people that are responsible for this extraordinary growth in our resource sector. The Labor Party is happy all the time to say, ‘The only reason the country is doing well is that we have a resources boom.’ That is an incomplete, invalid proposition. It is a bit odd if you say: ‘The reason we are prosperous is that we have a resources boom. So what we, the Labor Party will do, is destroy the living conditions of those who are contributing to the resources boom.’ It is a very odd kind of argument.

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Bevis interjecting

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

I remind the Leader of the Opposition, through you, Mr Speaker, that since 1996, nearly a million Australians have signed AWAs—

Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Aviation and Transport Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Bevis interjecting

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

Order! The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The member for Brisbane will remove himself under standing order 94(a).

The member for Brisbane then left the chamber.

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

Since Work Choices began, nearly 30,000 AWAs have been lodged. The Leader of the Opposition wants to rip all of them up and he wants to rip up all of the older AWAs. I will leave the last word in answer to my colleague’s question to that Western Australian worker, Mr Eddie Belcher. He said:

Australians have got freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of everything. If we want to make a deal with our employer over our working conditions, that is up to us.