Mr GRIFFIN (10:49 PM) —I note the outstanding endorsement I am receiving from the government benches, particularly from the Chief Government Whip, who is a great friend and admirer of mine, as he has often said—but he never says it publicly. Tonight I rise to reflect on a couple of issues in relation to the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business, particularly an article which appeared in today's Financial Review headed `P&O slams dock reforms'. It is an article by Stephen Long which goes through some of the results, so far, of some of the waterfront reform that has been undertaken by the government. I admit that this is only part way down the track and that there is a long way to go, but I would like to read from part of the article:

P&O Ports Ltd suffered a slump of 25 percent or more in the number of containers moved per hour at its Australian terminals during the past two to three months.

. . . . . . . . .

Management of P&O Ports, which handles more than 40 per cent of the nation's waterfront traffic, attributes the slump in port performance mainly to skills shortages resulting from the deadline for terminating employees imposed on it by the Federal Government.

P&O had to retrench more than a third of its workforce—some 533 people—within 24 hours of registering new enterprise agreements so it could qualify for funds from Maritime Industry Finance Corporation. MIFCo was set up by the Government last year to bankroll redundancies after Patrick Stevedores' Mr Corrigan dumped his unionised workforce.

"It was bloody stupid, really," the managing director of P&O Australia Ltd, Mr Richard Hein, told The Australian Financial Review . "We would have preferred to have a phased reduction in manning levels but we couldn't because of the government constraints."

When we look at the whole issue of waterfront reform, we see that what P&O has highlighted is an example of the way that the Minister for Employment, Workplace Relations and Small Business works. It is very much a matter of a big bang. It is the media circus rather than the policy emphasis. It is a situation where you try to say something grand and do something grander but, at the end of the day, end up in a grand mess. I know from being down on the docks on occasions in Melbourne, and I know from what occurred at that time, that a lot of the promise that was maintained by the minister was subsumed into a result which left Corrigan's company in a mess, the waterfront in a shambles and did not lead to anything like the changes that were hoped for. This big bang approach is something that this minister has tried to bring to a range of areas.

I note today, around his latest sojourn into public policy on the question of a republic, the minister was quoted with respect to the question of the flag. Again I quote:

The Employment Minister, Mr Peter Reith, has launched a direct attack on Mr Peter Costello's core reason for Australia to become a republic and suggested the Treasurer could have a secret agenda to change the flag.

Further into the paper, Michael Gordon, in commenting on this, states:

Peter Reith had the opportunity yesterday to engage seriously in the substance of the republic debate by answering Peter Costello's case that it is really about the symbolism of retaining a foreign head of state.

He abused it, opting instead for opportunistic scaremongering about the flag that, once again, raised questions about his motives.

. . . . . . . . .

. . . he suggested the secret agenda of those who spoke about symbols was to ditch the flag. It matters not that the flag is not being voted on in the referendum nor, as Mr Reith himself observed, that the flag is protected by legislation. "You cannot change it except by vote of the people."

We know from earlier comments regarding the question of this minister's view on the republic he has said that he has been consistent throughout—that he has consistently had three different positions; that he has consistently espoused them at the particular time he has held them; and that he has been in a situation where he has held them very truly and firmly, as he has very truly and firmly held beliefs until he has changed them.

I remember the comment I think made by the member for La Trobe, my friend Bob Charles, along the lines that the minister had had more positions on this issue than in the Karma Sutra. I note the member for Ballarat looking across at me; I know that he is aware of those matters in some detail.

Mr Ronaldson interjecting—

Mr GRIFFIN —I know that we would both like to know more about the Karma Sutra , but that is another story. But this does say something about this minister in terms of his positions on policy. As I said, he has been the sort of minister who has been very grand in the statement, but not so grand in the result; always there is the sweeping change, but at the end of the day he is sweeping most of it under the carpet. The sort of things that he has been up to in relation to the republic debate I think really crystallise his positioning—that is, that he has many positions, but not too many beliefs. It does say something about the way he has operated in this government and as part of the Liberal Party.