Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Abetz, the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Will the minister inform the Senate of the importance of a modern, flexible workplace relations system to productivity growth? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies?

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

I thank Senator Ferguson for his very important question. In this day and age, the greatest productivity gains are often made through a modern, flexible workplace relations system, not the stifling one-size-fits-all approach of the 1970s that Senator Lundy and the Labor Party are still embracing. It is not just me saying that; it is what Australia’s leading employers are saying as well. Just this morning I became aware of a comprehensive report prepared by the John Holland Group. It outlines in detail exactly this argument. It also details why a return to the outdated IR system being promoted by Mr Rudd and Labor would be a disaster. Let me just remind those opposite that the chair of John Holland is Janet Holmes a Court, someone who it is fair to say is no enemy of the Australian Labor Party.

The centrepiece of the current industrial relations system is the ability of individual workers and their employers to negotiate employment arrangements, underpinned by a strong safety net, which best suit both the worker and the employer, allowing mutually beneficial productivity gains. Let us hear what John Holland has to say about this system. They said AWAs are essential for the $90 billion building and construction sector to achieve further productivity growth. ‘Essential’ is their word. In fact, John Holland argue that, through AWAs, they can expect at least another 10 to 20 per cent improvement in productivity over the next five years. This proves that Mr Rudd knows nothing about productivity, because otherwise he would abandon his foolish pledge to outlaw AWAs. But then we all know, after his abysmal performance on AM last week, that he does not know anything about productivity. In case there was any doubt remaining within the community that he did understand anything about productivity, he dispelled that in his interview.

Productivity gains help us all. For example, they impact positively by reducing the cost of road construction, hospitals and a whole host of public works which, as a result, benefit every single Australian. These are gains which Mr Rudd and Labor want to deny the Australian community. There is one caveat to this 20 per cent productivity improvement prediction. According to the John Holland report, it will only be possible if the sector is ‘freed of regressive work practices’. That is if it is freed of union bosses such as Joe McDonald, Kevin Reynolds and others running riot over construction sites and freed of the likes of Dean Mighell’s pattern bargaining for no productivity gains.

Recently, Mr Rudd pretended to stand up to the union bosses when he told us he had dropped Mr Mighell from the ALP team. Yet today we learnt from the Victorian secretary of the ALP that straight after the election, just in time for the cricket season, Mr Mighell will be welcomed straight back into the ALP coaching panel. The reality is this: Labor’s IR policies are the policies their union bosses want, and Mr Rudd is nothing other than the ventriloquist doll of Sharan Burrow, Greg Combet and the ACTU.