Russell Broadbent (McMillan, 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 flexible employment and workplace relations systems contribute to a productive economy? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies that may threaten productivity and what is the government’s response?

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 McMillan for his question. I recognise his very hard work and note that in 1996 the unemployment rate in McMillan was 7.7 per cent. Today it is 4.1 per cent and that is good news. A modern and flexible workplace relations system is absolutely essential for a productive economy. As the OECD noted in its Employment outlook 2007 report, labour market reforms can have a sizeable impact on productivity levels. That is pretty explicit: labour market reforms can have a sizeable impact on productivity levels.

Those reforms could mean many things such as the abolition of the unfair dismissal laws. Small business hated those unfair dismissal laws, absolutely hated them. One of the reasons that we have seen 360,000 new jobs created over the last 15 months—95 per cent of them full-time jobs—is the abolition of the unfair dismissal laws. We have got rid of centralised wage-setting process and, most importantly, we have made it harder for union bosses to engage in frivolous strike action.

Mr Speaker, I can report to you that strike action in Australia today is at the lowest level since records were first kept in 1913, and that has had a positive impact on productivity. But, sadly, the message has not got out to some friends of the member for Hotham, including the leader of the ETU in Victoria, Dean ‘expletive’ Mighell. At around 11 am on Tuesday, representatives of Australian Paper, at the biggest paper manufacturing mill in Victoria, had all their CEPU and ETU members called out on strike by Dean Mighell, in unlawful strike action. He called the boys out on the site, in unlawful strike action, in support of an old site deal which is unlawful and which, in many cases, forces employers to pay union delegates on site and provides for compulsory deduction of union dues and paid time off for union meetings. In this case, the strike action is costing the company over $250,000 a day. Dean Mighell from the ETU—Labor Party royalty—sent a text message to the boys on site and said, ‘Come out for a meeting,’ and they are still on strike.

Even worse, the Industrial Relations Commission, which the Labor Party says they are going to abolish, ordered the workers to go back to work and Dean Mighell refused to agree to that order. He refused to consent to his members going back to work. So he is stopping work at the site to make a poor political point about a site deal which is unlawful under our reforms. How is it good for productivity to allow union bosses to, at the flick of a moment, call people out on strike? How is it good for productivity to have people like Noonan, Reynolds and McDonald in Western Australia go onto construction sites and try to intimidate the workers and close down work, all in the name of trying to build their membership and get the Leader of the Opposition into the Lodge? Real productivity is about workplace reform, making hard decisions and standing up to the union bosses who are trying to close down hardworking businesses that are trying to make a buck and keep the economy strong. When you are in government you have to show leadership and courage, and the Leader of the Opposition has failed to show courage in standing up to people like Dean Mighell, Kevin Reynolds, Joe McDonald, Sharan Burrow and all their mates.