Page 3823 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 October 2005
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Much is made of the $100 million that is supposed to be going to be spent on promoting understanding of the government’s workplace reforms. I do not know the basis of that figure. It is certainly not one of which I have been briefed, and I have had briefings on this legislation extending back some months. But the more important point is that we expect people to be educated on change. It behoves government to do so. Despite the rather futile attempts by the ACTU and various territory and state governments to muzzle that counter point of view while they felt they should be able to run their point of view on the airwaves—of course they were unsuccessful—the opportunity is now there for people in Australia to get a more balanced perspective on the proposed changes.
The government has a responsibility to make sure that everyone in the community understands the reforms. It did the same when educating people on the need for the GST and explaining how it would work. To do that it had to spend an amount of money. I did not like the ads particularly, but experts no doubt felt that they got the message across and it was understood. It was obviously money well spent. I believe, as in the case of industrial relations laws, after we have lived with what I referred to yesterday as an anachronistic system that is built on the British adversarial system, steeped in complexity and a multiplicity of awards and legislation, we are at last seeing progress towards reducing the complexity of that process.
Some of us in this Assembly have had lives in industrial organisations. I know, Mr Speaker, you have a better appreciation than most about industrial relations affairs. Much was made of the award simplification process that was meant to deliver wonderful improvements to the industrial system. Whilst there were positive measures out of that, I thought, in total, it was disappointing in that we were still left with quite complex documents for employers and their employees to find their way through.
The program that is being presented federally is a positive one in that it is ensuring that employers and employees must know their rights, obligations and opportunities under the new arrangements. It is essential that people be fully informed. To contemplate the alternative, not spending money on informing people, is quite absurd. I cannot help wondering whether the real motive is simply a matter of: “We do not want to have the other point of view heard because, ultimately, it will be more compelling,” as it was in the case of tax reform where members opposite and many of their colleagues on the hill were dismissive of that program and warned of negative outcomes in the future.
I want to revisit and take members back to a motion of Mr Gentleman’s back in September. I spoke to that motion then. I want to take the clock back to 1996 when we had the same ALP doom-saying and predictions then of doom and gloom as are currently being advanced by Ms Porter and her colleagues opposite in the Labor Party. Once again we were told the world, as we knew it, was going to come to an end; gloom and doom would prevail.
Let us recall what the man who is now the shadow IR minister—I think he is this week; it changes up on the hill so often; we are never always sure who has got the hat—Stephen Smith, who, as I have said previously, is one of the more capable federal Labor shadows, said in 1995:
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