Mr TOLLNER (2:03 PM) —My question is addressed to the Acting Prime Minister and Minister for Transport and Regional Services. Would the Acting Prime Minister inform the House of the current status of the reform of the nation's waterfront? Would the Acting Prime Minister quantify improvements made in Australia's operational capacity on the waterfront and how this compares with productivity rates in the past?

Mr ANDERSON (Minister for Transport and Regional Services) —I thank the honourable member for his question. It is a very important issue; it goes to the efficiency of our export transport facilitation in this country, and that is very important for Australian jobs. Mr Speaker, the Labor Party, of course, would have had you believe that they had cleaned up the waterfront. The union movement not only would have had you believe but actually were very fond of telling us that you could not improve waterfront efficiency in Australia—that it was impossible in Australia to reach the targets set by the government of an average number of container movements across the nation of 25 containers per hour. For the fifth successive quarter, the government's benchmark of 25 containers per hour has been consistently achieved. When we came to power, the average crane rate movement was 16.9 containers an hour. In December of 2000, that rose to 25½. In March 2001, we had 26.4 containers an hour; 26.8 containers per hour in the June quarter of last year; 25.8 containers per hour in the September quarter last year; and 26.3 containers per hour in December 2001.

We consistently showed strength and leadership on this issue, and we did so in the national interest. This is in stark contrast to the ALP's lack of leadership on issues relating to the waterfront specifically but more generally to the role of the trade union movement in the Australian economy. If we look at the current Leader of the Opposition, one of three ex-ACTU heads in this place, we find a consistent inability to show any direction at all on matters pertaining to industrial relations. Last week, for example, we had air services staff out on strike. The Leader of the Opposition remained silent while the shadow spokesman for transport made it plain that he fully supported the workers' right to strike, despite the fact that the Australian Industrial Relations Commission had made it quite plain that that strike was superfluous and that the parties ought to immediately start negotiating again. Indeed, if the union movement constitutes the holding company for the ACTU, the shareholders are plainly restless. They are looking for a return on their investment and they are looking to the board and the director in particular to take some decisions—any decisions—to take some policy courage and to define where it is that they are going, but they cannot get what they need. Consequently they are withdrawing their investment—they are walking away.

I can only conclude by saying that the question has to be asked: what would it say about leadership in this country if the waterfront were still being run by the ACTU and by the union movement and the Labor Party, and we had container movements stuck at under 17 movements per hour on average across the country? This has been an example of strong leadership by the government, delivering for the Australian people, and in particular for the export sector. It is about time that the union movement got a bit of return on their investment and some direction from the Labor Party.