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

Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I again refer the minister to the economic forecast in the budget papers. Can he confirm that the forecasts say that in the five years following the introduction of Work Choices productivity growth is expected to average just 1.5 per cent per annum? Can the minister confirm that, by contrast, in the five years following the introduction of enterprise bargaining in 1994 productivity growth averaged 2.5 per cent per year? Given these facts and the government’s own budget figures, how can the government continue to claim that Work Choices, with its emphasis on AWAs, is good for productivity growth?