Page 729 - Week 03 - Thursday, 21 May 1992
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MR BERRY: That record goes back 100 years. I heard Mrs Carnell mention strikes. Lockouts and strikes under what existed before the turn of the century gave rise to the basis of the current industrial relations laws. By working with the trade union movement, the Labor Party has eventually reached a situation where there are fewer strikes and very few lockouts. That is what the legislation was born out of - the struggle between employers and employees, the same sort of struggle that the Liberal Party will try to throw us back into. We do not need that sort of climate to be created by politicians from the extreme right. We can see an example of it occurring now in Tasmania - I have referred to this before.
Mr De Domenico: And the crane drivers dispute.
MR BERRY: What the New Right are trying to do is to take us back 100 years. Mr De Domenico says, "And the crane drivers dispute". He is suggesting that the New Right were behind the crane drivers dispute as well. What we are facing in this country is an attack on working people by the Liberal Party with their traditional rhetoric. It is the old struggle - weaken the influence of workers to control their futures.
Mr De Domenico: Divide and conquer.
MR BERRY: Of course, he says it - divide and conquer. That is what they want to do. The Labor Party stands proud on its record of industrial relations. That has been particularly so since 1983. One of the jewels in the crown of the Labor Party is the record on industrial relations since 1983. That is something which the Liberals will always envy, but they will never parallel that sort of performance. Gall them as it may, we will continue to hold our proud record high when it comes to our relationship with working people and our relationship with the trade union movement. The Liberals need not fear that the Labor Party is antagonistic to employers. We believe that a strong employment sector, with sensible management, is the best thing that can occur in this country. Unquestionably, that is the case. But, most importantly - and it is similarly unquestionable - you have to have a good basis for industrial relations. It has to be a basis whereby workers have some control over their futures and have some interest in the enterprise in which they work. You cannot have that sort of a situation under the industrial relations policies which are being proposed by Messrs Howard and Hewson federally. They are proposing what they say is freedom and flexibility, which is merely freedom for powerful people to exploit less powerful people and flexibility for powerful people to exploit less powerful people. That is what it is all about.
These Liberals here, babes in the woods, cannot even read that in their "frightpack" policy. Reading their "frightpack" policy, you can see what they intend to do. They intend to change the industrial relations system so that working people will be forced into the courts to defend their industrial rights. That is what these people intend to do. It is well known that ordinary working people are never going to be able to afford that sort of impost and they are therefore weakened in the protection of their industrial rights. These people - they cannot hide from it - intend to weaken the industrial rights of workers in this country, the same as they have been weakened in New Zealand and the same as they have been weakened in places such as the Philippines, the United States and so on. The strong will survive, but the weaker in our community will fall by the wayside under the Liberals.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
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