Page 2855 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 October 1992
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present levels or in the present circumstances. How about we renegotiate? How about we discuss something which is outside the award structure or outside the present applicable industrial laws?". Invariably, in those circumstances, the reaction of trade unions in this country has been, "Stop that. You are not permitted to do that. You have an industrial relations system which you must adhere to, lest, in particular, our power as unions be eroded in that process". That, Madam Speaker, is exactly what it is all about. This policy, Madam Speaker, announced yesterday by John Howard, gives to our industrial system the flexibility which I believe we have to have to survive economically as a nation.
Let us look at what has happened in New Zealand. In New Zealand we have seen that flexibility introduced and it has had widespread acceptance because it has worked. In New Zealand the facts speak for themselves. Growth is up. Employment is rising. Interest rates are down. Inflation is down. Madam Speaker, if those opposite do not realise a good thing when they see it, then we really are in a lot of trouble in this country. That system, that flexibility, that prospect of real jobs into the future - not jobs that are dictated by some remote negotiation between a union representative and an employer representative, but jobs actually negotiated in the workplace - is what really does matter in preserving the long-term profitability of the businesses that are so important to our long-term future.
Madam Speaker, those opposite are frightened by what they see in this policy. They are frightened because they know that this is a blueprint for the future. This is what the Australian people want. Madam Speaker, they say opposite that the Australian people are not going to accept this policy. I say that the Australian people, as proved by the increasing numbers who are abandoning trade unions in this country, know that the present system, typified by the power of entrenched industrial trade unions, has to stop. At the next election they are going to support this system which gives them the real chance to influence the course of their own lives and the profitability of their own enterprises.
MR LAMONT (4.13): Thirty seconds is all it will take to demolish all those arguments. Madam Speaker, I rise to address two points very quickly. First of all, I say to the Leader of the Opposition that it is obvious that he does not understand how industrial relations in this country work. You do not know, in fact, how the private sector awards in the ACT work. You do not understand how they have been arrived at. You do not understand the history, going back to 1949 in the ACT. You do not know how ACT based awards, particular and peculiar to the ACT - - -
Mr Kaine: You are wrong, Mr Lamont, again.
MR LAMONT: If you do know that, what you said in your introductory remarks just shows how little you care for the veracity of some of the things that you said in that document.
Madam Speaker, quite simply put, most of the ignorance displayed by those opposite cannot be apologised away. It cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Their lack of understanding about industrial relations has really reinforced the ignorance in their - what do they call it, "jobsack", "ratsack" - - -
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