Page 3100 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 24 September 2014
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Let us remember, in real terms, in wages, under what governments employees do better. Under the Liberal Party. Let us go back to one comparison. In 13 years of Labor under Hawke and Keating, wages in real terms did not actually grow. In 13 years, wages went down under the Hawke-Keating government, by 1.8 per cent. Under Howard and Costello, there was a 21.5 per cent increase in real wages. Who are you better off under?
I know the unions say, “We are here to protect the worker; workers are better off under us.” The facts do not support that case. And what we need to do is have systems of employment that work for everyone, not just for the unions. What have we got from Ms Berry? The standard union motion: unions are good; therefore everything the unions say is real. If you want to believe that little fairy tale, go for your life.
What do the IFAs also contain? They say employees must be better off overall than they would have been under the applicable modern award or enterprise agreement. Not everybody in the union movement thinks that Abbott is doing enough. Who would have thought that?
Indeed, what did Martin Ferguson, a well-known figure in Labor circles and often described by some as a Labor elder statesman—indeed, I think he was a former union boss—say? This is a quote from an article headed “Senate to block more Abbott industrial relations changes” in the Australian Financial Review in which Mr Ferguson described the changes as moderate:
In a provocative speech last week, Mr Ferguson called on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to go further than his planned changes in industrial relations, saying they are only a “step” in the right direction, but “really quite modest”.
Here is a man—and I think everybody would agree, particularly those in Labor circles—who knows at least a bit about IR and workers’ rights saying that Abbott is on the right track but does not go far enough. There you go. Do we take the word of Ms Berry, who says the changes are all evil, or do we take the word of somebody with a great deal more experience than Ms Berry—in the Labor Party, in the parliament and from working with business—who says the changes do not go far enough, they are quite modest, but they are a step in the right direction? And that is the problem with this motion.
The other thing is that I understand the opposition spokesperson for industrial relations, Brendan O’Connor, actually agrees with the view that terms and conditions including penalty rates are a matter for the Fair Work Commission to determine. Goodness me, I wonder if Ms Berry consulted with Mr O’Connor on that position as well.
So you have got a pattern emerging here, members, through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, of Ms Berry writing motions that really do not reflect reality and really do not, I believe, in many ways add to the debate.
There is the assertion in (a):
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