QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS - Workplace Relations

Senator NASH (New South Wales) (3.19 pm)—It never ceases to amaze me how those on the other side of the chamber can sit there and criticise the government for what it is doing without having any plan of their own. I will start with a comment that Senator Bishop made in his address. He said that Australia had never been so productive. I could not agree with him more. But the rea-son that Australia has never been so productive is because of this government. If he thinks that going back to the days of Labor and having 20 per cent interest rates and 11 per cent unemploy-ment is going to make this place productive then I would say he is dead wrong. For nine years it has been the goal of the Liberal-National coalition government to put in place industrial reform measures that will improve this country and take it forward. In this country we need to increase productivity and allow flexibility in the workplace so that both employers and employees can have arrangements in place that suit both of them while, at the same time, allowing the country to go forward. We need to do this because we need to remain internationally competi-tive. We need to get better and we need to improve our international competitiveness. We also need to ensure that, domestically—here at home—we are able to operate in the best way that we possibly can, to maximum effectiveness. So it is not only internationally; it is also domestically. We need to improve the industrial relations system so that we can do that. We need a simpler and fairer system. We have around 130 pieces of different industrial legislation and around 4,000 awards across this nation. What they are doing is stopping this nation from improving its produc-tivity and allowing better workplace practices. Certainly the part of industrial relations that I feel very strongly about—and I know that many people out in regional areas do—is the issue of unfair dismissal. It does not matter where I go around this state, having travelled across it for years and years, small businesses say to me: ‘We would employ more people if only we were more sure of the circumstances. We cannot afford to put people off and we cannot afford to have a situation under the existing arrangements that causes us real negativity.’ What they are saying is that they are looking forward to the changes so that we can have a fair system on both sides that will encourage them to employ more people. The industrial relations changes are sensible, they are practical, they are going to allow greater flexibility and they are going to encourage the growth of productivity in this nation—all those things that add up to making this nation a better place for, as I said before, not just employers but employees as well. All we have seen from the other side, from Labor and the unions, is a scare campaign trying to terrify workers about how terrible this is going to be. Quite frankly, I think they are just protecting their patch. You can see it; it is obvious. Right now it is important to rec-ognise that fewer than one in five people in this nation are members of a union. The opposition and the unions are trying to protect days gone by. They would prefer not to al-low this government to take the workplace relations system into the future, which is what we are going to do. Looking across at the other side, certainly at the Labor frontbench, I can see 17 Labor members who owe their careers to the unions. We have a raft of senators who owe their careers to the unions: Bishop, George Campbell, Conroy, Crossin, Evans, Forshaw, Hogg, Hutchins, Ludwig, McEwen, Marshall, O’Brien, Sherry, Wong, Wortley—and it goes on. It is no surprise that they would be trying to protect their union mates in the way they are approaching this. What we are doing here is encouraging a productive mentality in this nation. We are encourag-ing workers. We are encouraging employers and employees to work together so that they can both have the best outcomes and we can have the best possible environment for this nation to go for-ward. The changes are much more practical. They are sensible and fair and they are going to take this nation into the future.

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