Page 3819 - Week 14 - Thursday, 10 December 1992
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The stance taken by the Labor Government with regard to the 30 November strike was nothing short of unbelievable. The strike - and I quote a prominent union leader - was called "to support Victorian workers and to oppose the coalition's industrial relations policy". I cannot, for the life of me, understand what that has to do with the ACT.
Mr De Domenico: Can you see how concerned the Government is?
MRS CARNELL: Yes, it could not care less. (Quorum formed) In case no-one has noticed, the coalition does not hold Federal Government in this country yet, and I stress "yet"; so what was the supposed national day of action about from the point of view of ACT workers? Why did this Labor Government encourage and support ACT workers to go on strike? Certainly, and again I quote, "to support Victorian workers" makes very little sense if you believe in democracy.
The Kennett Government was elected with a very definite mandate to govern only a couple of months ago. It is obviously none of our business in the ACT how the Kennett Government implements its mandate. They have been elected to govern, and govern they must. The Kennett Government must do what they believe is necessary to get Victoria back on its feet. That is what they were elected to do. I am absolutely confident that ACT workers going on strike will not improve the dire economic situation that the Kirner Government inflicted on Victoria, and I am also sure that the national day of action did not produce one new job either in Victoria or elsewhere in Australia. The unemployment figures out today bear that out. Unemployment is now 11.4 per cent - the worst since the Depression. There are 979,900 Australians without a job, and a large number of these are young people. We have a whole generation of young Australians who are being denied their initial start in the workplace. That is a tragedy. Australia should have called 30 November the national day of disgrace.
The other supposed objective of the Labor Government supported strike was to oppose the coalition's industrial relations policy. I think today's unemployment statistics show how desperately Australia needs this policy. What has happened over a series of decades is that Australia has slipped further and further into the mire. We have massive structural inefficiencies which are causing this potentially wonderful country to be uncompetitive in the world market. A century ago Australia had the highest ratio of exports to gross national product in the Western world. Today the situation is the reverse. Australia's export orientation is less than half that of other OECD countries in relative terms and has barely advanced over the last three or so decades.
Let me give you some examples of the inefficiencies that the coalition's Fightback policy seeks to address. It would seem appropriate, I think, to start with Victoria. The Victorian railways are so inefficient that it would be cheaper to close them down and give every single commuter a small car than to run them. You think about that. The Victorian railways earn 12c in revenue for every dollar they spend, and that is supposed to be good business. They are going backwards, and they are going backwards quickly. They almost make ACTION buses look all right.
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