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

My question is to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer inform the House of the importance of a flexible workplace relations system to Australia’s prosperity? Is the Treasurer aware of any threats to that system?

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Blair for his question. As members of the House would know, the unemployment rate in Australia is now at a 32-year low of 4.4 per cent. Over the year to April, 310,000 jobs were created. This job creation has occurred at a time when real wages have been increasing. Real wages have increased by 19.8 per cent over the term of the coalition government. You could not have a situation where you had such strong job creation and real wage growth if you did not have a flexible industrial relations system which could handle it.

One of the great threats to the prosperity and the continuing growth of the Australian economy would be any return to pattern bargaining as advocated by the ETU’s Dean Mighell and the Labor affiliated union of the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union of Australia. The Leader of the Opposition at this stage will engage in prolonged conversation with his frontbench in an attempt to try and ignore Dean Mighell and the problems that he has with the Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union of Australia. He will try and keep his back turned and he will try and talk for as long as he possibly can so that he can engage in confected humour and laughter rather than engage, as he should be engaging, with the problems of Dean Mighell and the Labor affiliated Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union of Australia.

Yesterday the Leader of the Opposition said that he was going to pay back the $3.8 million that that union has given to the Australian Labor Party. Imagine what the ETU is going to do when it receives the $3.8 million back from the ALP. What do you think the ETU is going to do with it? The ETU will go round and run the Labor campaigns for all of its candidates in all of the seats. I think they have got one in Dobell, have they not? They have got a unionist who is coming up from Melbourne in Dobell. They have got an ETU in the electorate of Deakin. They have got Kevin Harkins, the ETU candidate in Franklin. I do not know if the current member for Franklin is here, but, if he is not, maybe we should just quote some of the things he has had to say about the endorsed Labor candidate for Franklin, Kevin Harkins. This is what Harry Quick, the member for Franklin, says about Kevin Harkins:

Kevin Harkins is a foul-mouthed bullying trade union person of the worst ilk.

It sounds like he comes right out of the ETU stables. The Leader of the Opposition will say that he will expel Dean Mighell for bad language, but will he disendorse Kevin Harkins who is ‘a foul-mouthed bullying trade union person of the worst ilk’? Will he do that? The other thing that Harry Quick says about Kevin Harkins is that he is ‘a Victorian interloper, a union official who has come down to run the Electrical Trades Union in Tasmania’. Dean Mighell, who allegedly now has nothing to do with the Labor Party because he has been expelled, has sent one of his henchmen down to Tasmania who is the endorsed candidate for the federal Labor seat of Franklin.

I was very interested to read in the Herald Sun today—bear in mind that the Leader of the Opposition does not think much of Dean Mighell; he is going to give the $3.8 million back—that Dean Mighell and his union are affiliated to the Victorian ALP. Dean can send delegates directly onto the floor of the ALP conference and Dean pays affiliation fees direct to the Victorian ALP. The Leader of the Opposition would say: ‘Oh, we are not going to have anything to do with Dean. He is a man who uses bad language.’ The Herald Sun today reports ALP Victorian Secretary Stephen Newnham. I welcome the fact the whip is trying to block the camera up. Mr Speaker, could the sight-screen move to the right, please?

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! Members are holding up their question time.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: if it would help, Mr Speaker, we will hold up a mirror here.

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

The member will resume his seat. That is a frivolous point of order.

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, Mr Speaker!

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yeah, I know, I know—it won’t go too well if he’s delivering the punch lines, I can tell you that! I had one sight-screen for my offie and one for my leg-break, Mr Speaker! The Victorian Secretary of the ALP, Stephen Newnham, said that:

... ETU money would not be used for the federal election campaign.

But Mr Newnham confirmed the state branch would keep accepting ETU funds.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—Oh!

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, Mr Speaker! Very tricky, this Leader of the Opposition, isn’t he? He goes out there and he says he is going to pay all of the money back—the $3.8 million—which we will believe when we see. It gets paid back so that the ETU can run the campaigns directly for their candidates. And the Victorian ALP keeps taking the ETU money. If this Leader of the Opposition wants to distance himself from Dean Mighell and the ETU, he will direct Stephen Newnham not to take the money from the ETU, not to take the affiliation fees; he will put his money where his principle ought to be.