Mr MOSSFIELD (10:27 PM) —During the budget week, the coalition government gagged in this House the Stevedoring Levy (Collection) Bill 1998 and the Stevedoring Levy (Imposition) Bill 1998, in spite of the fact that there were still some 12 opposition members who wished to speak on these two important bills.

By this move, the government has shown a complete contempt for this parliament by not allowing this important and far-reaching piece of legislation to be fully debated. It matters not if there were no more government MPs interested in speaking. In a democracy we on this side have also been elected to speak on issues, and we are regularly and repeatedly gagged by the Leader of the House (Mr Reith). As the Bills Digest made clear, these bills:

were introduced within 24 hours of Patrick Operations Pty Ltd (Patrick Operations) terminating the labour supply agreements with four Patrick employer companies which employed 1,400 members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA).

As recognised by the Federal and High Courts, the latter action was itself facilitated by the restructuring of the Patrick group of companies that occurred without the knowledge of the MUA and its members in or about September 1997.

The September 1997 restructure of the Patrick group saw the four Patrick employer companies, which had till then been trading profitably, sell all their assets. . . Through a series of assets sales and share buy-backs, the four labour hire companies were left with limited operating funds and only one asset. That asset was labour supply agreements with Patrick Operations.

Patrick subsequently terminated these agreements and terminated the employment of the MUA members, and so the lock-out began. Of course, the government considers our waterfront to be inefficient, but there are contradictory views on this issue. When comparing Australia's waterfront performance with overseas ports, we must keep in mind a number of factors. The productivity of Australia's ports is restricted by low transhipment rates, small cargo volumes, the type of vessel servicing Australian ports, infrastructure problems and poor management practices. We need to also note the unfair comparison with other countries that have modern, first-class equipment while much of the equipment in Australia is in dire need of updating. How on earth can we expect Australian workers to match the performance of anyone with outdated and inefficient equipment? We know that where our workers have good equipment they perform not as well as others but much better than others. However, nobody is arguing that we should not be striving to improve the efficiency of all Australian industries and services whether that be the waterfront, legal profession, transport, agriculture or law enforcement.

But are we saying that if we find an inefficient section, say, of the legal profession that may have been entrenched for years we sack all the judges and QCs who work in that section of industry? Are we saying that if there is some inefficiency, say, in a particular bus depot we sack all the bus drivers and maintenance workers in that depot? That is exactly what this government is saying with the introduction of this legislation to try to booster its unbelievably bad track record on this waterfront issue. While as individuals we may from time to time be inconvenienced by such inefficiencies, it would be wrong to present a one-sided case, as indeed this government is intent on doing in this parliament on the waterfront dispute.

One could be forgiven for believing that the reason that this government is paying so much attention to this particular industry is that the workers are protected by a strong trade union. The bill raises a levy on stevedoring operations to fund redundancies in a particular section of the industry—Patrick's. The bill allegedly ensures that it is the industry and not the taxpayer which pays for the redundancy arrangements. But, as we all know, all costs are eventually passed on to the public, so it is clear that the taxpayer will pick up this cost in the longer run.

But has the industry as a whole been consulted on these new arrangements? I think not. If these redundancy arrangements were to be accepted as part of Australia's industrial relations practices, there are a number of scenarios that might emerge. If a government and employer wanted to get rid of a unionised work force in a particular company, say, in the metal industry or building industry, would it be correct to say that they could introduce, for example, the `Metal Industry Levy Collection Bill 1998' or the `Building Industry Levy Collection Bill 1998'? Would they be prepared to levy all companies in these industries to ensure that the industry, and not the taxpayer, funded such redundancies? I believe the answer is likely to be a very firm and decisive no. You can see that industrial relations under this government is moving into fantasy land.