Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and relates to the government’s industrial relations policy. I refer the minister to this Treasury document I am holding, dated 27 October 2005, released under FOI, entitled The regulation of workplace relations: current, proposed......and for the future. Why did the government black out the section marked ‘unfinished business’ before releasing the document? Minister, what does this blacked out section say?

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

I am prepared to have a bit of a punt. I bet the blacked out section says that Work Choices has been good for the economy. I am prepared to say that there are more jobs, higher wages and fewer industrial disputes. The Labor Party, on the first anniversary of Work Choices—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Gillard interjecting

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

Order! The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has asked her question. The minister has the call.

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

The Labor Party, on the first anniversary of Work Choices, is asking about a document from 2005, before the introduction of the laws. What does that say about the Labor Party? It says that it does not want to deal with the issues relating to workplace relations. Workplace relations, over the last 12 months, has been one of the foundations upon which has been built a stronger economy for today’s jobs and tomorrow’s jobs. In the last 12 months, 263,000 new jobs have been created in Australia—90 per cent of those jobs full-time.

The unemployment rate is at 4.6 per cent. The Labor Party believed that the rate of full employment could have been around six per cent, seven per cent, eight per cent or maybe nine per cent. The unemployment rate today is 4.6 per cent. Isn’t that good for the workers? Isn’t that good for Australian families? Even better, strike action today is at its lowest level since records were first kept, in 1913, and that is good for the workers as well.