Mr BEAZLEY (4:04 PM) —We half welcome to this place the first manifestation of the Reith government; no, sorry, the second manifestation of the Reith government. I move:

That Mr Speaker's ruling be dissented from.

There is only one particular suspension of standing orders that is acceptable in this place—that is, the motion to suspend standing orders. Then the subsequent motions which are placed before this chamber are motions which are placed before this chamber to deal with it. There is no provision in standing orders to suspend under certain conditions. There is no provision whatsoever to do that. The only provision that lies there is the basic suspension of standing orders. It would, of course, be possible for the minister to assure himself that the matter could be deliberated upon without debate simply by gagging debate on the subject.

But I do find it passing strange that the government in these circumstances has decided that they do not want debate on that motion. They have said that they are inordinately proud of their work here this day, that they are inordinately proud of what they have done to ordinary people in this country, that they think they have had a terrific outcome as far as ordinary people in this country are concerned and that we ought to in this place provide opportunities for one after another to stand up and say why they thought it was such a good idea.

One of the cardinal elements of accountability in this place is that we should be able to debate matters of substantial importance. What this government has wanted us to pass without debate and then foolishly failed to move in the appropriate fashion was that this House support the introduction of genuine competition on the waterfront and so on.

Any point here is imminently debateable in this place as to whether the course of action this government has gone down is a course of action that this country would prefer or a course of action that this parliament ought to approve of. For them to stand in this place and move that a matter should be considered without debate is an absolute abdication of their preparedness to defend themselves in this place. It is of a piece with their indefensible actions over the last six to nine months when people in this country have been persistently and deliberately misled.

They think themselves smart on this matter. They think themselves smart that they have no relationship of integrity with the Australian people. They think themselves smart that they can trick Australian people out of their jobs. They think themselves smart that they can approach this issue on this occasion on this day with minimal public consideration of what they are up to.

Mr Speaker, you cannot allow a suspension of standing orders to be used to permit such action to take place—to forbid, as you effectively do, the capacity to move an amendment to a motion before the House. That is unprecedented—to remove the capacity to move an amendment to a motion before this House; an amendment which, if we had had the capacity to move it, would have indicated a whole variety of concerns on our part for the 1,400 workers who have been sacked—the 1,400 workers, many of whom have never been on strike; many of whom are in ports which have, in the memories of any person in this House, not been on strike; many of whom have sat down in successive efforts to improve efficiency on the waterfront, and delivered.

I think of the workers in Townsville, who have quadrupled their productivity over the last four years. According to the Prime Minister (Mr Howard), they are being punished—not because they have been regular strikers, not because they have been in confrontation with their employer, not because they have committed acts of inefficiency, not because they have been rorting, but for one reason only: they are members of a union.

When this Prime Minister supported the introduction of this Industrial Relations Bill, when the industrial relations minister introduced his Industrial Relations Bill, when we pointed out that the object of this Industrial Relations Bill was to deprive workers of freedom of choice, we were told, `You are talking nonsense. Choice is what we are about; workers can choose to be in unions, or they can reject the option of being in unions; workers can choose to collectively bargain, or they can reject the option of collective bargaining; workers can choose to be protected by awards and an enterprise bargaining process, or they can choose to have individual agreements. All their rights are protected. Australians love freedom. Australians love an opportunity to have a choice. That is all we stand for.' Then calumny is heaped on the union movement, calumny is heaped on those who want to collectively bargain; nevertheless, they have that choice.

What has been revealed today is that there is no choice. The choice exists only in so far as the government are prepared to permit it, and no further. If they choose that you do not have the right to collectively bargain, if they choose that you do not have the right to exercise freedom of association, if they—

Mr Truss —Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. The Leader of the Opposition is moving a dissent from your ruling. In his contribution to the debate, he is discussing the question of the previous resolution before the House. He really must confine his remarks to areas where the ruling is inappropriate.

Mr SPEAKER —The Leader of the Opposition is ranging fairly wide, but I think he has licence to do so in the present circumstances.

Mr BEAZLEY —I thank the Speaker for that ruling. What I was, in fact, referring to—and I thank you for your licence in this regard, Mr Speaker—was the amendment that I was unable to move because of the set of circumstances from which we are dissenting. The reason why I would be moving that amendment, were we to have the chance, would be the failure of the minister to move his motion in the appropriate form, having been given permission by the parliament to do so, correctly interpreted by yourself, and therefore providing us with the opportunity to do that. As I was saying before being interrupted—and as would have been covered in the amendment that we would have moved, had your ruling permitted us to do so—those workers have had their capacity of freedom of association ripped away from them.

The Prime Minister stands in this place and thumbs his nose at these ordinary working Australians and says, `You're being punished for the activities of somebody else; well, serves you right.' What sort of community operates on that basis? What sort of community allows freedom of association to be ripped away by the whim of a Prime Minister? What security is there for anyone?

When you look at a dictatorship created, what you see is a step by step process by which your rights and freedoms are ripped away from you. The things that have made a particular nation, with democratic practice at the heart and core of its culture, are ripped away from you. That is what happens, and that is precisely what has happened in this instance—they have been absolutely ripped away from them.

Mr Ross Cameron —What about compelling people to join a union?

Mr BEAZLEY —The member who is interjecting on me talks of compulsion and competition. This motion which we have debated talks about competition. What competition, my friend, is being permitted at Dampier?

There has been an action at that great exporting port of Dampier—a far more significant exporting port than Adelaide, a far more significant exporting port than Brisbane. What has happened at that port? P&O have been deprived of their rights to operate in that port. A monopoly has been established on one basis and one basis only: that those who agree to be participants in the work force of that monopoly do not join a union. That is the basis on which that proposition has been involved. Because the workers of P&O exercised their right to join a union, to collectively bargain, not only were they removed from the waterfront—so was P&O.

This is not a small incident, old son. This happens to be a major issue. This happens to be what this government is supposed to be talking about in relation to competition. P&O said, `Okay, we've lost the contract. Can we come on and compete? Can we come onto the Dampier waterfront and compete with this non-union operation that has been put in in place of us?' No. And does this government support it? Yes. This government, which is supposedly about competition, says, `Bully for you, Western Australian government; get on with it.'

This is the freedom of association that you support. This is the freedom for ordinary, individual Australians exercising their conscience that you have supported. That is what you have associated yourself with in this regard. It is very much to your detriment that you have done so. It speaks ill of you that you have chosen to do so.

There is a much more complicated picture around the Australian waterfront than that which is being portrayed here. When you look at the operations of Patricks and compare them with the operations of P&O—because this motion here talks about competition—you find various things.

There is a competent operation here in Australia being operated by a company that knows basically how to do things, not a company that enjoys good relations all the time with its work force but which actually knows how to operate. Then there is another operation being operated by somebody with no experience of management of anything other than a cash box. The consequence of that is incompetence in management on that waterfront. We have had resignations from supervisory personnel associated with that company pointing out that the lack of productivity is as much a problem of management as it is a problem of that work force.

That work force is to be sacked as far as this particular company is concerned. That work force is to take the blame for their incompetence. That work force is to be fired and replaced. That is what is going to happen as far as they are concerned. This parliament does not have a chance to debate that matter because this parliament had a motion before it which said that a matter would be put forthwith without debate. But, when that motion was actually moved, it was moved in mistaken form by the smart alec associated with it.

There is a situation as far as this country is concerned now where workers' rights are threatened, Australian rights are threatened, and this parliament is precluded from debating the principle motion before it. There is a piece of legislation before this parliament, but after I spoke to it no further discussion could take place upon it. There is now another motion before this House—this particular proposition—and the parliament is denied deliberation on this motion. It was denied deliberation on this motion and would have been denied deliberation on this motion within standing orders if the Leader of the House (Mr Reith) had bothered to move his motion in the correct form, which should have read:

That this House without debate supports the introduction . . .

And so on. That is the correct form in which it should have been moved if it was to be protected from the operations of the standing orders.

That was what that smart alec Leader of the House should have done, because at the end of the day the Speaker is in a situation where he has to make a very quick interpretation of what actually happens in this place. If the Speaker was well served by his Leader of the House, on this occasion what the Leader of the House would have done was this: he would have moved his motion `that this House supports without debate the introduction' and so on of what he called genuine competition. He failed to do that and he let his Speaker down when he moved in that way. The consequence of letting his Speaker down when he moved in that way was to put this parliament in a situation where we now have to deliberate on a dissent motion in relation to the Speaker's ruling.

It is necessary to deal with that dissent motion in relation to the Speaker's ruling because what we are confronting here is an action which Australians must contemplate. There has been so much deceit in the presentation of this issue in this place. Part of that deceit has gone, for example, to the alleged cost of stevedoring operations as far as the waterfront is concerned. We had the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Anderson) standing up here and stating the enormous burden that is imposed upon rural imports. The cost of stevedoring charges for a kilo of beef is about 1¼c. That is the cost of stevedoring charges on a kilo of beef.

There was a time when the farmers had genuinely legitimate claims against people on the waterfront. The relationships between the farming community and those on the waterfront were utterly poisonous. The hardworking farmers of this nation were being massively frustrated. That was one of the reasons why, when we took up the Howard-Fraser mess on the waterfront—the massively overmanned waterfront with the horrendous work practices across the board—that had sat there for years with a cheerio show from the Liberal Party just letting it pass through, we firstly went to bulk cargo. We went to the bulk of goods that moved across that waterfront; two-thirds of the goods that moved across that waterfront. We went to them. What did we say? We said, `Fix it.' And they fixed it.

They produced world best practice, sufficient world best practice for the minister to be able to stand at the dispatch box earlier today and say, unattributed, `We do not have to make provision for sacking any workers involved with bulk cargo'—although I think there is a question mark over that, quite frankly—`because we have world best practice.' It was just a slight sentence that passed. He just dismissed as irrelevant two-thirds of what goes on on the Australian waterfront with the words, `That is world best practice.' Two-thirds of what passes across the Australian waterfront goes with world best practice. Then we have the situation which is being dealt with here. What is going on in Patrick at the moment—or at least until last night—was an enterprise bargaining process.

Mr Peter Morris —Asset stripping.

Mr BEAZLEY —The honourable member for Shortland also points out that what was going on in Patrick was asset stripping. That was also going on as far as Patrick was concerned. What was also going on, apart from asset stripping by the management, was an enterprise bargaining process which has been available and which has already produced a 40 per cent improvement in productivity on the waterfront—a 40 per cent improvement on productivity on the waterfront.

There is more needed to be done. Who admitted that more needed to be done? Those workers on the waterfront as well as management. Who was prepared to discuss better productivity? Those workers on the waterfront with management. What were they doing with Patrick? They were discussing productivity change with Patrick. What Patrick did not want to do was to arrive at a conclusion. Patrick have not been motivated by any outcome other than the destruction of the union. That has been the only outcome.

A product of destruction of the union is the destruction of ordinary Australians' rights—ordinary Australians' rights which we fought two world wars to have held in place. Do not kid yourself that that was not an issue in those two conflicts. What we valued in this country above all was that we were different. What we valued in this country above all was that Jack was as good as his master. Part of Jack being as good as his master is that Jack had freedom of choice. Jack was able to take a decision about whether or not he wanted to bargain with his master as an individual or bargain with his master with his friends. That is what we had in this country and we were proud of it. We saw it as central to democracy.

I remember when I was first elected to this place that both sides of the House were standing with Solidarity in Poland, and both sides of this House were waving banners for ILO conventions on freedom of association. Both sides of this House were booting the Soviets right up the bracket for their Communist dictatorship suppression of workers' rights. But somewhere along the way to the forum, the other side of the House got mugged. Somewhere along the way to the forum, the standards that they used to uphold in criticism of totalitarian regimes were stuck in the back pocket. They stuck them in the back pocket here today with the legislation they have introduced in this place and the motivation that they have associated with their resolutions.

Because of the Speaker's incorrect ruling in not upholding our point of order on that, dictated by the failure of the Leader of the House to move his motion appropriately and to include the words `that this House supports without debate the introduction', and so on, we have not had the opportunity to point these things out. We have not had the opportunity that a parliament ought to have to deliberate on these things. It does no harm to this parliament to be able to deliberate on these matters. In fact, it is essential that we do. Unless this relevant dissent motion is carried, we simply will not have that opportunity.

Mr SPEAKER —Is the motion seconded?