Michael Keenan (Stirling, 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 the current state of the Australian labour market? Why is it that Australia now has the lowest unemployment level in 30 years? Are there any threats to this strong level of employment?

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

I thank the member for Stirling for his question, which goes to the heart of economic achievement and prosperity in this country. There is no better mark of good economic policy than the success that a nation has in providing jobs for those people who want them. According to that measure, this country is doing better than it has done at any time during the last 30 years.

I am proud to say that since the end of March last year, when the new Work Choices legislation came into being, 245,000 new jobs have been created. Real wages are now 17.9 per cent higher than they were in 1996 and the latest ABS industrial dispute figures show the lowest figure ever recorded, at 3.2 days lost per thousand employees. It is worth contextualising those three things. We were told when the new legislation came in that it would herald an era of industrial unrest, that it would drive wages down, that there would be mass sackings. None of those things has occurred. The truth is that Work Choices has added to the prosperity and the productivity of the Australian economy.

There is an alternative. The member for Stirling, concerned as he is about the interests of the people he represents, wants to know whether there is any threat to these conditions. There is a threat. The threat sits opposite. We saw an example of the Labor Party trying to be all things to all men last week. The Leader of the Opposition was out there saying to the business community, ‘I’m really going to be a bit softer on Work Choices. I’m going to make it a bit more business friendly. Kim Beazley may have threatened to rip it up, but I’m sort of going to adjust it at the edges and it’s going to be a bit kinder and gentler.’ That is what he was saying.

That lasted about 18 hours, because the next morning on the Today show the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the member for Lalor, the hard woman of the Labor Party as far as IR is concerned, said, ‘No, you’re not getting away with that, Mr Leader; I want the world to know that we’re going to rip it up.’ In that memorable phrase that she will be reminded of for quite a long time she said, ‘First of all we’ll tear it up and then we’ll get rid of it.’ In other words, Labor policy is to bring back the nightmare of unfair dismissal laws for small business. Labor policy is to reinstate union control of industrial relations. Labor policy is to put at risk the 30-year low we have in Australia’s unemployment rate.

Let me say to the member for Stirling: we are very proud of the fact that we have the lowest unemployment in 30 years and we are very proud of the fact that we have presided over the economic management and the policies that have delivered that remarkable outcome for all of the Australian people.