Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I find it fascinating that here we are back after a three-week break and we have an opposition that again is just absolutely, totally devoid of any policy input into this country at all—not one single word. This debate is characterised by a comment allegedly made at a dinner meeting. Did we hear one word today about protecting Australian workers? Did we hear one word today about an acknowledgement of the fact that strong economic growth is the quickest and simplest way to protect Australian workers? Why is it that the Australian Labor Party seems totally incapable of cutting its ties with the union movement, which invariably involves the destruction of workers’ rights in this country, but instead promotes the trade union movement?

There is nothing clearer in my view, nothing clearer at all, than to look at what has happened in relation to real wages in this country since 1996 to see who has got the policies right in relation to Australian workers. There has been a 16 per cent plus increase in real wages since 1996 compared to 1.2 per cent for the 13 years when the Australian Labor Party was last in government. It seems to me that the ALP continues to treat Australian workers as fools because, I tell you what, there is not one Australian worker who will forget the recession of the 1990s—the recession we had to have. No amount of regulation protected the jobs of those workers; no regulation protected those jobs.

I remember in my home city of Ballarat two in three shops in the main street were closed. No regulation protected the jobs of the workers in those shops. What lost those jobs for those Australian workers was the inability of the Australian Labor Party to run a strong economy and the inability of the Australian Labor Party to bring in appropriate reforms to make sure we maintained a strong economy and therefore maintained jobs growth. Since 1996 there have been 1.7 million new jobs created in this country. That is what this government is doing for the Australian worker and part of that process has been reform—industrial relations reform. I remember after the last round the Chicken Littles came out and said the world was going to collapse—the world as we knew it was going to collapse. What have we seen since? Low inflation, unemployment down to about five per cent and strong jobs growth. That is the outcome of those last reforms: a strengthened economy and a strengthened opportunity for Australian workers.

I noticed that in the Bendigo Advertiser today, the very, very marginal member for Bendigo was talking about industrial relations reform. Remember, we have to go back to the last two days. This is Chicken Little and the world is just about to collapse; the world as we know it will collapse because of these IR reforms, apparently. This is what the member for Bendigo said:

“It will be a slow burn,” the Opposition MP said. “It won’t be for 12 or 18 months that workers look back and see that their wages and conditions have been reduced.”

Australian workers know exactly what their wages and conditions are. Australian workers know exactly what has happened to their wages and conditions under this government. If the Australian Labor Party spent less time trying to remove people such as Ann Corcoran, a hardworking local member, from politics—if they spent less time trying to remove the Ann Corcorans of this world—and actually did something about policy development then they would be substantially stronger. The Australian Labor Party owes Ann Corcoran— (Time expired)