Jackie Kelly (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. How have Australian families benefited from a strong economy, and what are the threats to the policies on which this prosperity is based?

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

I thank the member for Lindsay, whose constituents have certainly benefited over the last 10½ years from a strong economy. There were some documents released this morning called the national accounts. Amongst many other things, the national accounts showed that real wages have now risen by 17.9 per cent. Can I say that again, Mr Speaker: by 17.9 per cent since 1996, compared to a reduction of 1.7 per cent in real terms when Labor was last in government. In addition, there are nearly two million additional extra jobs since 1996. All of these results are good news for Australian families. Of course, there was introduction of Work Choices, which includes as a key element the introduction of Australian workplace agreements. Incidentally, in November the number of new workplace agreements signed was a record, at 33,927, and in the seven months that have gone by since Work Choices came in 181,671 AWAs have been entered into. In a year’s time there will be almost one million Australian workplace agreements. Yet this morning the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has indicated in an interview in the West Australian newspaper that the opposition will stick with the union demanded promise of abolishing AWAs if it is elected.

In other words, one million Australian families are going to have their working lives thrown into chaos by the decision of a Labor government, if it were elected, to abolish AWAs. This will hurt Australian families. It will not only hurt Australian families; it will hurt the industries of Western Australia. The mining industry of Western Australia dreads the idea of AWAs being abolished because AWAs lie at the heart of the success, the prosperity and the progress of the mining industry of Western Australia. We are constantly told by the current spokesman on industrial relations, the member for Perth, that all our economic prosperity comes out of the mining industry. That is not correct, but I certainly acknowledge that the mining industry has been a very important part of it. So far from AWAs being bad news for families, they provide families with higher incomes, the flexibility of working from home, the flexible use of annual leave and sick leave, job sharing, and flexible start and finish times. Yet because the unions want it, the Labor Party would sweep all of this away and throw the working lives of a million Australians into chaos.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question, again, is to the Prime Minister and refers also to today’s national accounts. Does the Prime Minister recall stating in a speech to the National Press Club back in December 1997:

We are—above all—a high growth government. The overriding aim of our extensive economic reform agenda is to deliver Australia an annual growth rate of over 4 per cent on average during the decade to 2010.

Can the Prime Minister confirm that today’s national accounts show that GDP grew by a lowly 2.2 per cent over the last 12 months and an average of barely three per cent in the first six years of this decade? Prime Minister, haven’t the government’s economic policies failed to equip Australia to be the long-term, high-growth economy that we need to be to maintain our long-term economic prosperity?

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

The answer is no. It is true that the national accounts showed growth for the year to the September quarter of 2.2 per cent. It largely—not entirely—reflected a decline in farm production of 10 per cent. That is due to something that we all abhor and that is the drought. Maybe the Leader of the Opposition has an answer to that which has escaped the rest of his 20 million fellow Australians. We have 10 per cent being taken out of farm production so that farm GDP is 11.4 per cent lower over the year. There is a feature article accompanying the national accounts, and the ABS suggests that the drought will directly subtract about half of one percentage point from overall growth in 2006-07. That is a matter of very great concern, particularly to those farmers around Australia, which this side of the House proudly represents, who are grappling with the drought. The economy in September was badly affected by the drought.

In relation to growth and economic achievement, nothing that the Leader of the Opposition draws comfort from in these accounts—what he apparently thinks is comfort is largely caused by the impact of the drought—alters the fact that we have now had 16 years of continuous economic growth and we have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years. The problem is not finding jobs for people who want them; increasingly, it is finding the workers for the jobs that are vacant. That is the dilemma of the modern economy which has been created by the economic policies of this government. It is a terrible dilemma.

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And it’s all your own work!

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

Yes, it is all my own work—thank you. The fact that we have a 30-year low in unemployment is my own work and I am proud of my work. I am proud of the fact that we have a 30-year low in unemployment. I am also proud of the fact that the successive reforms of this government in taxation and industrial relations, in particular, have laid the groundwork for future prosperity. We do want a long-term growth economy and that is why we are in favour of industrial relations reform. The fact that Labor oppose it means they do not believe in long-term growth for the Australian economy.