Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. As the Prime Minister celebrates today the one-year anniversary of his government’s industrial relations laws, will the Prime Minister repeat his statement from yesterday that ‘working families in Australia have never been better off’?

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

I stand by what I said yesterday and indeed the day before and the day before that. Let me remind the House, and in particular the Leader of the Opposition, as we mark the first anniversary of the introduction of Work Choices, that that historic economic reform has contributed to the strengthening of the Australian economy. The reason the government introduced Work Choices was to lay the foundation for a further period of economic growth and expansion.

It is true that there are other voices and other views about Work Choices, but those are the voices and views essentially of the organised trade union movement of this country, which seeks not so much to advance the welfare of Australian workers but rather to reimpose union control over the industrial relations system of this country. This debate is not about the rights and interests of Australian workers, because those rights and interests have been promoted by Work Choices.

I remind the Leader of the Opposition that a very successful Labour leader, Tony Blair, once said, ‘Fairness in the workplace starts with the chance of a job.’ Measured by that, fairness is at a 32-year high in Australia; so I would say to the Leader of the Opposition, as we mark one year after the introduction of Work Choices, that if you apply the test of fairness embraced by Tony Blair then you will acknowledge that this country is fairer and better as a result of the introduction of Work Choices.