Dr NELSON (10:42 PM) —I just say in response to the member for Bass that you cannot have it both ways. Unfortunately, you cannot live in a country that is sustaining the levels of growth that we currently are and come into the parliament to, presumably, represent the people of Bass and deny reforms in transport, taxation, communi cations, government regulation and a whole range of things, including consolidating the finances of the country, on the one hand and then on the other say, `We do want a first-class and free education. We do want extremely high levels of child care and all kinds of social services provided.'

I am rising tonight to make some comments about industrial relations policy. Whilst I consider Ms Jennie George, the President of the ACTU, to be an engaging and inherently decent person, her views and those of her dwindling union membership are inappropriate to the reality with which this nation is faced. In continuing to campaign against workplace based agreements underwritten by a safety net, freedom of association, youth wages and the repeal of unfair dismissal provisions for small businesses, the ACTU courts not only irrelevancy but also the ire of a generation that is being denied the reasonable prospect of having a job.

But I think we also need to remember that we have a practical example of what the ACTU's prescription for the problem might actually be. The Hawke-Keating Labor government signed an accord with the unions. A degree of wage restraint was achieved in return for a boost to what was to become known as the `social wage'. The latter comprised Medicare, child care and a raft of social security benefits previously unavailable to middle income Australians. But the accord actually reinforced the very settings that mitigate against employment growth. In reaching such a centralised trade-off, the ACTU implicitly endorsed weak macro-economic policies, including the budget deficits that we use to build social infrastructure and, as a consequence, high interest rates, both business and mortgage.

In the decade from 1984, when Australia averaged annual economic growth of 3½ per cent and 160,000 new jobs were created each year, the number of Australians without work in our country actually increased from 670,000 to 850,000. And, to complete the scenario, labour productivity was less than half of what it is today. In other words, if you sit in Canberra and make decisions in relation to the remuneration of workers or even at the level of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, you do so in a vacuum of what is relevant to the circumstances of a particular workplace, its employer and employees. In the past three years, for example, the lowest paid workers in this country have received a real increase in their wages of 7.8 per cent—with lower inflation and interest rates being a critical part of the equation. Under the ACTU-Labor government accord, they received a real reduction of five per cent.

The example of trying to abolish youth wages might appear as a fashionable crusade to young people who at times—I suppose, understandably—long for the trappings of modern life. But, if it is such a `just' Labor cause to abolish youth wages, why haven't the New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmanian governments removed them from their own jurisdictions? And, indeed, why hasn't Tony Blair?

If youth wages discriminate, they do so in favour of young people. The Australian Retailers Association estimates, for example, that the abolition of youth wages would cost the jobs of 170,000 young Australians; it would add $1.6 billion to the national wages bill. Further to that, if you did what the shop assistants union put forward in its submission to the AIRC review of youth wages and abolished youth wages for those over the age of 18, you would add $360 million to the national wages bill. Where youth wages essentially have been abolished—for example, in the banking and major building sectors—very few young people are employed.

The reason why Labor governments at a state level have not abolished youth wages is that, if you want to destroy jobs, overprice and overregulate the conditions of employment. If you doubt this, when next you go into a local shop—and I say this to those on the other side in particular—simply ask the person who owns the business whether they believe these things are mitigating against the employment of young people. As Tony Blair, shortly after moving into Downing Street, told British unions:

The only way to ensure job security for your members is for them to work in efficient and profitable businesses . . . the days of lightning strikes are over.

Rather ironically, a week later, in September 1997, Mr Beazley, the leader of the Australian Labor Party in this place, was reminding unions of the 19th century struggles on the railways in Queensland. (Time expired)