Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Mason for his question—a question in which he correctly noted that Work Choices is creating jobs, to the tune of 205,000 jobs and counting, which represents a record period of job creation. More specifically, Senator Mason asked how Work Choices is facilitating choice. Just as the empirical evidence proves that Work Choices is creating jobs, so too it proves that Work Choices is facilitating choice. It is as good as its name.

Since Work Choices came into being on 27 March, some 129,000-plus employees have availed themselves of the choice provided by Work Choices to enter into an Australian workplace agreement. More interestingly, more than double that number, over 308,000 employees, have chosen to sign up to collective agreements. I remind those opposite what the Leader of the Opposition said about the implication of Work Choices. This is what he said:

What all this amounts to is collapsing the right of ordinary Australians to collectively bargain ...

The figures, like all the figures, have shown that prophecy to be wrong. Once again, just as their Chicken Little claims of mass sackings have been proven wrong, so too have Labor been proven wrong when it comes to their claims about choice. There is only one threat to choice in the workplace, and that is the Labor Party and their outdated ‘no ticket, no start’ policy. We had no better evidence of that than what happened earlier this week when Labor prevented non-union journalists from entering their conference venue.