Stewart McArthur (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister inform the House of the current level of workplace disputation in Australia? Is the minister aware of any threats to this historically low level of disputation, and what is the government’s response?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for the question and note that in 1996 the unemployment rate in his electorate was 8.6 per cent. It is now 4.7 per cent, which is a good news story. That sort of result comes from a partnership that has been forged between Australian workers, Australian business and the Australian government. We are prepared to make the hard decisions in relation to government policy which help to create an environment in which business can employ more people. That is why we undertake reforms such as taxation reform, which the Labor Party opposed; industrial relations reform, which the Labor Party opposed; independent monetary policy, which the Labor Party opposed; paying off $96 billion of government debt, which the Labor Party opposed; getting the budget into surplus, which the Labor Party opposed; and Welfare to Work, which the Labor Party opposed. One reason the Labor Party oppose our tough economic decisions is that they take a popular approach and another is that they are in the pocket of the union movement.

The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics data on industrial disputes, as the Prime Minister stated, indicate that in 2006 the level of strike action in Australia was at its lowest level since 1913. In fact, industrial disputes under the Labor Party in government were 13 times higher than today and the ABS now, in some states, has strike action at such a low level that it will not identify where there are strikes because it might identify the companies.

That is what old Labor is about: giving unfettered access to the workplace to the union bosses. We have seen a classic example of that in Queensland. I saw these quite horrific ads in the Courier Mail about SJ Electric. One says:

Attention all electrical workers: SJ Electric is attacking your wages and working conditions. Electrical workers on the Bundamba water treatment plant site are being paid substandard wages.

I thought: ‘Hang on! They are saying that the water treatment plant workers are being paid substandard wages by SJ Electric.’ There was another ad by the union movement—the same union movement that has put aside $30 million for the next federal election—and here in my hand is a full-page ad from the Courier Mail. Unbelievable—using the sparkies’ money to run these political campaigns! I said to myself: ‘What is the true story? They are saying that the workers are worse off at SJ Electrics than they would be in a deal constructed by the ETU.’

So we had a look at a few of the ETU negotiated union collective agreements. We found that, in comparison with SJ Electric, the average increase in wages under the SJ Electric greenfields agreement was $110 a week over the union collective agreement. So in fact the workers were far better off—more than $110 a week better off—under the SJ Electric greenfields agreement than they were under a union negotiated collective agreement. And yet I thought: ‘The ETU wouldn’t lie in these ads! The union bosses wouldn’t tell a fib! They wouldn’t try and mislead the people of Queensland in relation to wages, surely!’

The point is this: as Greg Combet said, in 2006—and, gee, you are going to hear these words a lot between now and the end of the year:

I recall we used to run the country and it would not be a bad thing if we did again.

The Labor Party is about the interests of the union bosses. The coalition is about the interests of the workers. We want the workers to have jobs. We want the workers to have careers. And we want the workers to have better pay.