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

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his $55 million advertising campaign which promised working Australians that award conditions like penalty rates and overtime would be ‘protected by law’. Given that the Prime Minister’s previous much advertised industrial relations law did not protect these award conditions as he promised, why should any Australian believe that his pre-election industrial relations law will now protect these basic award conditions?

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

Unlike the Leader of the Opposition, I know what my party’s policy is. I take the opportunity of reminding this House that last Friday I announced that the government would legislate a fairness test in relation to those circumstances where any employee might agree to trade away such things as penalty rates and overtime. The purpose of the fairness test will be to ensure that fair compensation has been given in return. We have decided to introduce this fairness test because, when the legislation was put through more than a year ago, it was never the intention that it become the norm that such things as penalty rates and overtime would be traded away without proper compensation.

I also take the opportunity of reminding the parliament, and in particular reminding the Leader of the Opposition, that since the introduction of Work Choices more than 276,000 new jobs have been created, real wages have continued to rise and unemployment has hit a 32-year low, while strike action is now lower than at any time since 1913.

You may have heard me say those things before, and you will hear me say those things again in the future. But I will add another thing you will hear me say a great deal of in the future, and that is that long-term unemployment in this country, namely the measure of people who have been out of work for more than a year, is now at its lowest level since that particular statistic began to be kept. In fact, it has fallen by 22 per cent over the last year. So I conclude, in responding to the Leader of the Opposition, by saying that I think I am across the detail of our policy, and the minister is across the detail. I suggest the Leader of the Opposition bone up on his own policy.