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

Prime Minister, isn’t it a fact that this Australian workplace agreement, drawn up by the Hotels, Motels and Accommodation Association, takes away penalty rates, overtime, public holiday pay and rest breaks for people who are paid the minimum wage of $13.47 an hour? Given the Prime Minister’s own Work Choices laws have allowed agreements like this, and the Prime Minister has defended agreements like this in the past, why should any Australian trust his government to deliver basic fairness in the workplace?

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

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition will understand that without looking at the agreement she holds aloft, I am not going to confirm or deny anything that might be in it. From here, even the sharpest eyesight would not be able to read everything in that document, and she knows that.

She invites me to say something about penalty rates, overtime and loadings for shiftwork or weekends. It is true that I have argued in the past—and I do not deny it—that these should be matters of negotiation. I have never denied that. I have argued that in the past. But can I also tell you about somebody else who has argued it in the past. Let me read something to you.

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A 16-year-old—

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

The member for Lyons!

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

I quote:

I’ve negotiated numerous agreements where we’d negotiate, say, an all-up payment, an all-up rate in lieu of, you know, penalty rates for working shiftwork or weekends.

In other words, ‘We’ve negotiated them away in return for something that’s fair.’ That was said by none other than Greg Combet, the current Secretary of the ACTU. I know that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has a brief on this, and I know that she did a deal with the unions that completely excluded the interests of many of the wealth creators of this country. As a result, we now have the Labor Party committed to a return of union domination of the industrial relations system. As Heather Ridout of the Australian Industry Group said, the debate about AWAs, important though it may be, has obscured the fact that the real poison in Labor’s industrial relations policy is the return of the dominance of collective bargaining. And what Labor will bring back is a situation where, wanted or not, a union having award coverage over a particular workplace will be able to inject itself into a negotiation at that workplace, to the detriment of the interests of the workers and the employer.

I am proud of the industrial relations reforms that this government has made. I am proud of the Reith reforms. I am proud of the fact that the destructive and uncompetitive behaviour of the MUA—

Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Adams interjecting

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

Order! The member for Lyons is warned!

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

on the Australian waterfront was broken in 1998, and I make no apology for breaking the power of those unions that were destroying the international competitiveness of this economy. We moved from an hourly crane rate of 17 to crane rates of 27, and Labor would reverse that.

What is really at stake in this industrial relations debate is the determination of Labor to go back in time. What is at stake here is the refusal of the current Leader of the Opposition to show the courage that Tony Blair showed to the British trade union movement when he became the leader of the British Labour Party. He said: ‘You cannot go back. The changes of the Thatcher government are here to stay because they are good for Great Britain.’

Let me say this: the changes we have made ought to stay because they are good for Australia’s future. I say to those who sit opposite: if you want to deliver a mortal blow to the Australian economy then you should persist with your policy of turning back industrial relations reform and, if you are elected as the government of this country and you turn back those industrial relations reforms, history in the future will record that you have done an enormous disservice to the working men and women of this country.

Louise Markus (Greenway, 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 how a flexible workplace relations system is contributing to more and better jobs for working women? Are there any threats to this contribution?

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 Greenway for that question. I note that in 1996 the unemployment rate in Greenway was 8.8 per cent; today it is 4.2 per cent. It was 8.8 per cent unemployment in Greenway at a time when the Labor Party were running the industrial relations system hand in glove with the trade union bosses—the same trade union bosses and the same industrial relations system that the Labor Party want to take us back to should they be elected to government.

Under the reforms made by the Howard government in the last 14 months alone, 326,000 new jobs have been created, 45 per cent of those jobs going to women and 85 per cent of those jobs being full time. The female participation rate in Australia is near an all-time high of 57.7 per cent compared with the 53.7 per cent when we came to government in 1996, and the wages gap between men and women has narrowed under the Howard government. In 1996 women were earning 87 per cent of male earnings and today it is 89.4 per cent, despite the fact that there has been a significant increase in the number of women going into the lower paid industries such as retail and hospitality compared with male dominated industries such as mining and construction, where there are higher wages. In addition, the government has provided over $28 billion in family-friendly initiatives, such as the baby bonus, the family tax benefit and the childcare tax rebate, which help to provide flexibility and give women options when they want to return to the workforce.

That has not come about by accident. It has come about because of the economic reform undertaken by this government—and opposed all the way by the Labor Party. The Labor Party opposed us on the first wave of industrial relations reform in 1996, which created Australian workplace agreements. If you believe the Labor Party, AWAs have been around for only 15 months, yet they have been around since 1996. In a modern workplace, people want the flexibility provided by Australian workplace agreements. The old industrial relations system set up under Labor—managed by the Labor Party for the union bosses—was so inflexible that it drove a lot of women to become casual workers, and it drove a lot of men to become independent contractors because the mainstream industrial relations system could not accommodate the needs and aspirations of those people. So we changed the system. We put in place a flexible mainstream system that brought people who wanted flexibility into the mainstream industrial relations system, and that delivered flexibility.

So when you go to Port Macquarie and meet women who have been employed for 13 years as casuals and who for the first time get a contract that they can go and borrow money against because the AWA is flexible enough to give them the mainstream contract, you say, ‘Isn’t that good news for families? Isn’t that good news for women?’ That is the flexibility in the mainstream system that gives women the opportunity to get a job. It helps them to shape, in negotiation with employers, family-flexible hours. Do you know what else? It is delivering higher wages, fewer strikes and more jobs. That is what our system does. That is what economic reform does. Opposed all the way by the Labor Party, our workplace reforms have delivered the flexibility that is empowering women in the workforce in a way that we have never seen before in Australia’s history.

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

My question is again to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister guarantee that the Australian workplace agreement drawn up by the Hotel, Motel and Accommodation Association and reported today in the Daily Telegraph, which takes away penalty rates, overtime, public holiday pay and rest breaks for people who are paid the minimum wage of $13.47 an hour and not one cent of compensation—

Alby Schultz (Hume, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Schultz interjecting

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

Order! The member for Hume is warned!

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

Will the Prime Minister guarantee that this Australian workplace agreement will be illegal in all cases—

Cameron Thompson (Blair, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Cameron Thompson interjecting

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

Order! The member for Blair is warned!

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

given the special circumstances exemption which exists under his changes to his Work Choices laws?

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

I tell you what I will guarantee. There is a guarantee which I have given in the past and which I am very happy to repeat—that is, interest rates will always be lower under the coalition than they would be under Labor. The other guarantee I give is that if the Labor Party wins the next election and repeals our industrial relations laws unemployment will rise significantly.