Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, the health and wellbeing of everyone, including those of us who visit. It was a real eye-opener how much time is taken, how many meetings are held and how much work they put into occupational health and safety in that factory, and their record since the introduction of these things has been magnificent.

This legislation I support because our party and this government are putting forward some worthwhile changes. It is not about the money; it is about the families that work in industry right across this country. If we can do a little bit to make it easier to grow the opportunity for work and young people especially—I am passionate about them getting into work in the first place. There have been some budgetary measures—we will talk about them when we come to the appropriations bill—that make some changes to the way we encourage young people into the workforce. Some see them as harsh; I see them as a philosophical change of how we look at getting young people into the workplace. The greatest gift we can give a child is an education, but after that the greatest gift we can give anybody in the community is an opportunity to work. Their self-esteem is enhanced. They do not go onto a benefit straight away; they go into a job. They go into a place of opportunity. They go into socialisation. They go into a workplace where they have other people who will encourage them to do better as we chase excellence in this country in every area of our workplaces.

It is a changed community, as the member for Werriwa said, and a lot of the changes are happening regardless of what governments legislate. It has been put to me that the very-high-unionised areas are diminishing in their place in our economy and the more flexible areas are a place of growth in our economy. I dare say there will be those members who present arguments to show me that is wrong. I look forward to those arguments. But I cite our car industry and say—not our car industry but international companies' car industry—they could choose when, where and how they come and go, to the detriment of this nation. No-one was more passionate about football, meat pies and Holden cars than me. I loved the life that I lived near the Lang Lang Proving Ground, having friends working at the Lang Lang Proving Ground—a Holden proving ground—and noting that General Motors-Holden are going to continue with the Lang Lang Proving Ground for the work that they need to do with the cars they are going to import into this country. We went through the best of times with strong manufacturing supported by government. I am afraid we have run out of money, and the downside for all of us is to not have Holden or Ford produce here. I think that is an absolute tragedy, but you cannot continue propping up organisations forever at any cost. I am not an at-any-cost person.

I hope that when this legislation is passed there will be people who get real opportunities in the workplace that they would not otherwise get. I hope that we can have in this House a very strong debate, a good debate. There might be an opportunity out of this debate or out of all the debates that go on for business and the workforce to begin to set some parameters in Australia that we can both agree with. I am not talking about an accord; I am just talking about some basic tenets of where we are coming from in this nation with regard to industrial relations. That is a cooperative event between unions and business.

They should not need to have the government legislate to have the workplace be the workplace we want it to be in this nation. We will all have different views about that workplace; but, if we can just give that flexibility and opportunity for employees and employers to come together, I have no problem with union involvement in that. I think there is a place for the union movement in this country—I have never walked away from that—but it should be a matter of choice, it should be a matter of opportunity for people and, if you are going to have access to the workplace, it should be genuine access to the workplace for all the right reasons. I am probably talking about a perfect world. So be it. What is it—shoot for the moon and you may end up in the stars, but at least you've had a go. I think that, with this legislation, there is a great opportunity here for us to do better than we are doing today. I encourage the parliament to have that conversation. Thank you.

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