Mr FARMER (2:27 PM) —My question is addressed to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Would the minister inform the House of how workplace and individual agreements have boosted the economy and provided higher wages for Australian workers, and how the government will continue to deliver more jobs and better pay for all Australian workers?

Mr ABBOTT (Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) —I thank the member for Macarthur for his question. I can tell the member for Macarthur that this government has moved the workplace relations focus from awards to agreements, from industry wide to enterprise level negotiations. Enterprise and individual agreements mean higher productivity, and that means more jobs and higher pay. This government's focus has been where it always will be: on doing the right thing by the ordinary Australian workers—by the ordinary battlers of this country.

In the 1980s, in the era of the union accord, labour productivity increased by just two per cent a year. In the early nineties, with the beginning of enterprise bargaining, labour productivity increased by 2½ per cent a year. But under this government, with a move to different types of agreements—particularly individual agreements—labour productivity has increased by three per cent a year. More productivity means more jobs and higher pay. We have had one million more jobs since 1996. We have had half a million new full-time jobs since 1996. We have had a 12 per cent increase in average weekly full-time earnings since 1996. Because under this government workers and managers are talking more and fighting less, not only have we had more jobs and higher pay but also we have had fewer strikes. The level of strikes in this country is just one-thirtieth what it was in the early and mid-1980s and it is just one-third what it was in 1995.

Partly as a result of these sorts of changes, the OECD estimates that Australia's structural rate of unemployment has dropped from 8½ per cent to just under six per cent since the mid-1990s. This is only the beginning of the kinds of reforms and improvements that the government want to bring about. We are determined to take the unfair dismissal monkey off the backs of the small businesses of Australia; we are determined to ensure that there are no strikes without secret ballots first; and, above all else, we are determined to restore the rule of law in our workplaces, particularly in the construction sector, because honest workers, honest unionists and honest managers deserve a clean industry and a safe workplace.