Mr HOWARD (Prime Minister) (10:30 AM) —I hope the member for Perth now feels a bit better. In the short time available to me, let me remind this place that nine years ago, when the amendments to the workplace relations bill were returned to this place, the same doomsday predictions were made, the same emotional attack was made on the government and a number of questions were asked.

I turn to the speech of the member for Fraser, the then opposition shadow minister and member for Canberra. He will remember the speech in which he asked the question:

The answer to that question was a resounding yes. He said:

As every Australian knows, there is no prouder boast of this government than that, in the time that we have been in office, 1.7 million more jobs have been created. There has been a lot of rhetoric and emotion in this debate. The heaviest burden carried by the Australian Labor Party throughout this whole debate is the fact that the government I have led over the last 9½ years has been a better friend of the workers of Australia than the Labor Party has ever been.

No matter what events may cross my political path in the years ahead, all I can say is this: of all the things to which I may have in a small way made a contribution, there is none of which I am more proud than the fact that my government has lifted the living standards of the men and women of Australia. We have given the workers of Australia more jobs, higher wages, lower interest rates and lower levels of taxation. We have brought to the working men and women of Australia hope and opportunity. All the Labor Party has brought to the working men and women of Australia is a harking back to a bygone age that was never as golden as they painted it—

Ms King interjecting—

The SPEAKER —Order! The member for Ballarat will calm down.

Mr HOWARD —The working men and women of Australia are now enjoying better wages and better conditions than they have ever enjoyed in the past. That has all occurred despite the doomsday predictions of the member of the Australian Labor Party.

As this debate comes to its closing phases, let us remember that in the end the only guarantee of job security and higher wages in the Australian economy is a strong economy. You cannot legislate job security in the face of a failing economy. We saw that in the early 1990s when we had a much more regulated economy. We had an economy regulated according to the Labor model, yet more than one million people lost their jobs and real wages were in free fall. That is the reality.

The test of any industrial relations system, whether it is proposed by us or by those who sit opposite, is the contribution it makes to the strength of the economy. The test of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Bill 2005 is whether it will result in a stronger economy, whether it will further unleash the productive efforts and resources of the men and women of Australia and whether it will further encourage the risk takers and entrepreneurs of Australia to invest in jobs and the future of this country.

This is not a debate about the past in Australia; it is a debate about the future. It is a debate about which industrial relations system will better strengthen the Australian economy in the years ahead. This bill is an investment by the government of this country in the future hopes and aspirations of the working men and women of this country. It is not an investment in negativity and looking back. The Labor Party has again fallen into the trap of pledging itself to repeal the bill lock, stock and barrel, just as it pledged itself to oppose the GST. Once again the Labor Party is looking to the past and not to the future. Once again the Labor Party and its attitudes have failed the future aspirations of the working men and women of Australia. (Time expired)