Page 3825 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 19 October 2005
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Certainly the damage caused by that short period of government has lasted in the Australian economy for quite a while, but it is wonderful that we are now starting to see all of those adverse impacts gradually whittled away while the commonwealth government gets that massive debt down that Labor was so fond of borrowing for offshore and getting the tax system improved. I am really hoping that we are going to see better and more improvements in tax reform. The industrial system is now going to be one where the people in the workplace are the ones whose issues have most consideration, not employer organisations or union organisations. I think that is the exciting thing about the process of industrial reform that is coming out of this Australian government.
Ms Porter, in sweeping tones, dismissed everything the Howard government talks about. She said they are pushing to get rid of the VSU. What a great achievement that tyrannical charge on students in Australia was. It has been fought for 30 years. It was used to fund the Labor Party’s campaigns. Here it is, going to go out the door; they are going to have to bleed money out of some other poor group of people. You talk to any university student—it would not matter if they voted Labor, Liberal, Greens or independent—and they will say to you, “This is terrible. What can you do to get rid of it?” Fortunately, we have been able, as a consequence of people like Senator Abetz—Mr Stanhope’s good friend—championing the cause in the Senate, to get rid of that terrible impost.
We talk about all these terrible things that the Australian government has achieved—the low unemployment, the low inflation, the stable and productive economy. I guess I can cope with that. I suppose we will just have to struggle through and endure a little bit more of it because I do not see too much prospect of things changing on the hill. I see poor old Mr Beazley up there, hanging in there, trying desperately to sort out his party. They are not behind him. I do not think there is much prospect that he is ever going to be in a situation of leading the government of this country, especially while we see positive initiatives such as those that we are talking about today.
The tragedy of this whole debate is—I said to a senior trade union official recently, “I have got to commend you. Your campaign has been very clever,”—that they have been quite successful in frightening a lot of people. Certainly it nearly worked in the tax campaign but, gee, people have changed their minds now. I said, “It was a very deceptive campaign, but very, very good at scaring people.”
People would not realise—and I want to make sure this is on the record—that, in fact, so many of the rights in the workplace are protected by law. And they will be under this government. The minimum award classification wages, the annual leave, personal carers leave and parental leave—all of these things are going to be protected by law. I take you to the web site, if there is any confusion amongst members opposite, because it is spelt out very clearly there; there are reams of detail available. You will understand, when you look at it, that in fact the fair pay commission will protect minimum award classification wages.
There are many in the community—and I am not one of them—who said this was far too conservative in terms of its approach, that Australia could accommodate a more interesting level of reform. In fact, the Howard government has taken the view that they want something that is fair for those at the workplace and fair for employers.
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