Mr SLIPPER (6:22 PM) —I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity of joining in the debate on the Stevedoring Levy (Collection) Bill 1998 and the Stevedoring Levy (Imposition) Bill 1998. As the Minister for Workplace Relations and Small Business (Mr Reith) has made very clear, the coalition is absolutely determined to bring about world's best practice on the Australian waterfront. We do not believe that, in 1998, it is possible to continue with an unproductive and inefficient waterfront, along with the rorts and corrupt practices which have existed for so many years.

Mr Holding —What are they? Tell me, come on!

Mr SLIPPER —What about the nick? What about the way in which people refuse to work the way they should? What about the way in which people rort the system to get the most they can out of overtime while failing to produce the number of container movements that they should? We all know about the Australian waterfront. We know that it is an international disgrace.

Mr Martin Ferguson —Tell us about John Sharp.

Mr SLIPPER —You ought not interject, my friend. You are an absolute apologist for John Coombs and the Maritime Union of Australia. The Labor Party stands condemned because it essentially has been prepared to support a union with wages and conditions way beyond those of the Aussie battler while conditions on the Australian waterfront have brought about a situation where workers in other parts of the economy are losing jobs. Families are suffering because of the ineffi ciency of the Australian waterfront which has made so many Australian industries uncompetitive. The former Labor government knew what had to be done and in fact wasted $430 million in the attempt. This government has started the process with the Workplace Relations Act, and we and the majority of Australians believe that this international scandal must be fixed up once and for all.

We are determined to achieve real and meaningful reform on the Australian waterfront. We owe it to our children and grandchildren. The future of the country is based on the need to bring about world best practice in our waterfront. We are Australians and we have the capacity to be as good as the rest of the world. It is simply unacceptable that our waterfront remains a disgrace and so inefficient that our products are not able to be conveyed across the wharves to compete in the world marketplace.

These two bills before the House will deliver on our commitments towards reforming the Australian waterfront. The levy will contribute towards redundancies in the interests of improving efficiencies. The bills raise a levy on stevedoring operations to fund these administrative arrangements and ensure that the industry is responsible for such funding rather than the taxpayer. The Labor Party, in contrast, threw away $430 million of taxpayers' money to their mates in the MUA. Yet, regrettably, productivity remains virtually as low as it has always been.

This bill provides the mechanism for the collection of the levy, imposed by the Stevedoring Levy (Imposition) Bill 1998 , on the loading and unloading of containers and vehicles in Australia. The bill will ensure that there are significant improvements in productivity, because the minister has made it amply clear that the redundancy payments will only be available to fund improved efficiencies on the Australian waterfront. Redundant employees will receive, depending on their length of service and classification, amounts of up to $270,000 including superannuation. The levy will be administered by the Maritime Industry Finance Company, which has been authorised to borrow up to $250 million to be repaid by the imposition of the stevedoring levy outlined in the bill before the House.

Nowhere in the world is there a workplace with luxurious conditions such as those existing on the Australian waterfront. Most Australians do not mind a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, but unfortunately it is simply unacceptable that someone should receive $90,000 a year to sit on a crane for 14 hours a week.

Mr O'Connor —Rubbish!

Mr SLIPPER —Do you think that is acceptable? Do you think it is appropriate that someone should be paid $90,000 to sit on a crane for 14 hours a week? These kinds of corrupt practices and inefficiencies are objectionable because they are helping to make it difficult for Australian companies to export efficiently.

Let us look at the crane rate. Australia's five-port average crane rate of 18 per hour is currently 45 per cent below the modest benchmark of 25 containers an hour. Thirty per hour is common overseas. Australia is well behind competitors like New Zealand, Thailand and even Mozambique. It takes many more days to turn around a ship on the Australian waterfront than it does in New Zealand, and it is much more expensive to process the passage of goods from ships and across the waterfront. Strike figures on the waterfront are almost 10 times the national average and second only to coalmining. We were the worst country in the world for waterfront reliability in 1997. Is this acceptable? The coalition very firmly believes that it is not. Occupational health and safety records are the worst in any industry.

You will be interested to know that as part of the overall waterfront reform package, including the bills currently before the House, the government has reached agreements with Australia's two major stevedoring operators—Patrick and P&O Ports—to adopt seven key performance benchmarks as the basis for continuing improvement. These include an end to overmanning and restrictive work practices; higher productivity; greater reliability through less industrial disruption and the elimination of outdated work practices, for example, the nick; improved safety, injury and fatality levels back to the all-industries average or better; lower costs throughout the logistic chain to the waterfront gateway; more efficient use of the technology available to increase productivity and ship turnaround times; and improved training. These seven benchmark objectives are the basis behind these bills. It is interesting to note that redundancies will only be financed if those seven benchmarks are met.

The Australian community demands that there be real and lasting waterfront reform. I do not care whether someone is in a union or not in a union, but it is completely unacceptable for there to be a closed shop on the wharves. With respect to the waterfront dispute, it is interesting to note that the Labor Party has acted as the foot soldiers for the MUA. The unions and Australian Labor Party leaders were very selective in which court orders they would observe and breached rulings made by Mr Justice Barry Beach in the Victorian Supreme Court which prohibited MUA workers and other people from maintaining pickets in Melbourne. When Mr Justice Tony North found that there was a case to answer with respect to certain of the matters raised by the union and made interim orders—which, I might add, were observed by Mr Corrigan and Patrick—we found that the union was very much to the forefront, as was the Labor Party, in demanding that the stevedore observe those orders.

The Labor Party and the MUA have been absolutely hypocritical over this whole issue of waterfront reform. Labor has been exposed as a party prepared to stand up for a privileged minority which has gone out of its way to destroy the jobs of other Australians.

It is interesting to note that wharfies, on average, earn $72,000 a year; whereas nurses earn about $40,000; hospitality workers, $29,000; and police, $47,000. These people give a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. But it is obvious that, with the conditions which have arisen on the Australian waterfront, the wharfies have forgotten how to provide a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. It should be noted that Patrick's, with its new work force, has ended the rorts, has been more efficient and has been attaining world's best practice and performance.

It is tragic that the MUA and the Labor Party have been prepared to defend the indefensible. The opposition has been prepared to defend the MUA in its breach of court orders, and to see the jobs of other Australians destroyed.

This government is absolutely committed and determined to bringing about enduring reform on the Australian waterfront. It cannot go on as it is. The Labor Party threw $430 million of taxpayers' money in the direction of the waterfront and failed to achieve significant improvements in productivity. We are saying that enough is enough. This scandal must be fixed up once and for all. This government, including the Minister for Workplace Relations and Small Business, is absolutely determined to bring about change and world's best practice on the Australian waterfront. I commend the bills to the chamber.