Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. I refer the minister to productivity forecasts in the government budget papers. For ease of reference, it is Budget Paper No. 1, statement 1, table 2. I refer the minister to the forecasts in these papers, which confirm that productivity growth for the 2006-07 financial year will be zero. Don’t the government’s own figures demonstrate that there were absolutely no productivity gains resulting from the introduction of Work Choices? Given that today’s productivity is tomorrow’s prosperity, don’t the government’s own forecasts completely contradict its claims that Work Choices is good for the nation’s future?