PRIME MINISTER:
Well ladies and gentlemen, Mr Andrews and I are here just to say very briefly that the workplace relations package released today does represent the fundamental modernisation of our system yet seen. It continues the process we began in 1996. We couldn't go as far then because of opposition in the Senate. It is built on the concepts of flexibility, of freedom and fairness. It's a policy that will boost productivity. It's a policy, I'm sure, that will see a continuation of rising real wages because they are underpinned by greater productivity. It's a policy that trusts workers and their employers to make the rights decisions in their interests and in the interests of the Australian community. It does not represent an attack on living standards. Indeed, as with our 1996 reforms, it will enhance living standards, and I believe the policy will be strongly supported in the Australian community.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, can you guarantee that no Australian worker will be worse off under these changes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Mark, my guarantee is what my Government has delivered. And my Government has delivered has delivered a 14 percent increase in wages in real terms. My Government has delivered the highest real wages that this county's had.
JOURNALIST:
What do you say to the WA Liberals who are already campaigning against this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the state parliamentary Liberal Party has expressed a view on it, but this is I'm sure a policy that will have the support of my Western Australian federal colleagues.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister can you characterise what the new parameters that the Fair Pay Commission will apply in adjusting minimum wages; say a bit more about what those will be and how...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Kevin may want to say something about that.
KEVIN ANDREWS:
The Fair Pay Commission will operate in a way which ensures that it takes into account aspects such as the impact that its decisions might have on those who are on the margins of employment, for those who are unemployed - something which we've argued before the Industrial Relations Commission year-in, year-out. It will also look at the impact of its decisions, particularly on small business, which are the greatest employers of workers in Australia. And importantly, unlike the current system, it will monitor, in an ongoing way, the impact of the decision which it takes on a regular basis.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister are you saying that your reforms will deliver a better outcome over the next, what, ten years, than the 14 percent that has been delivered by the present system?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I believe that if they're fully implemented they will produce greater productivity, and there's every prospect of that.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard did this system envisage getting rid of the plethora of minimum wages that exist in awards now into a single legislative minimum wage so that there will be one minimum wage in this country and not...
PRIME MINISTER:
But there will still... As the minimum wage is set that will be reflected in the Award classifications.
JOURNALIST:
So in essence there won't be a difference for a minimum wage across industries, there will be one single minimum wage?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they'll be reflected in the Award classifications.
KEVIN ANDREWS:
If you take the Metals Award, for example, I think there are 15 different classifications. Under these proposals the Fair Pay Commission will reflect each of those classifications in its decisions.
JOURNALIST:
Can you give any estimates Mr Howard about what you think this will do for job creation in the medium to longer term?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not going to try and put a figure on it. I always find those rather empty sorts of exercises. It's never possible to be all that precise. I just know that, based on the experience of the last ten years, that the freer the system, the greater the job creation. I believe that the estimates of job gains made in relation to reforming the unfair dismissal laws - made by others, not by us - runs into figures up to fifty to eighty thousand in small business. They're figure that others have used. I have always eschewed specific targets and so forth in relation to these things. They do tend to be a bit rhetorical. I just ask people to look at what has been achieved, and I believe if we can not only maintain the momentum, but increase it. And these reforms will increase the momentum. There's no doubt about that. There'd be... greater workplace relations bargaining will occur and I believe that that will produce more productivity, better outcomes.
JOURNALIST:
When you became Prime Minister there was one federal industrial relations bureaucracy. Now there's three is that really simplifying the system?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look, it's a system that will provide, inevitably, greater opportunities for people to go into workplace agreements, which will be based on simpler minimum conditions. I mean, I said in my speech that the essence of this policy was to facilitate and expand the entry of people into workplace-based agreements, both individual and collective, and what matters is going down that path, and if we go down that path, by definition, we'll have a much simpler system because workplace and collective agreements are much simpler than the very complex Awards that we now have.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard can you explain a little bit more about this minimum standard that will apply, that will also streamline how AWA's are formed? Can you explain what the minimum standard will be a little bit more by telling us what won't be in it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I tell you what's in it. I mean, I'm always positive. What is in it are things I mentioned in my speech, and the Award rate will apply depending on the person's job classification.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister it would seem that the unfair dismissals... How do you argue that by making it easier to sack people, their job security will be strengthened?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well job security, ultimately, is determined by the state of the economy. I mean you can have all the rules under the sun, and the complicated, allegedly protective, industrial relations system that we had in the early 90s did not protect the Australian workers who lost their jobs when the economy fell over under the Keating-Hawke Government, and that will always be the case. The greatest determinant of job security is economic strength, and what these reforms will do, in my view and the Government's view, will be to further strengthen the economy by making it more productive, and therefore jobs will be safer.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, is there not a risk that you're putting too much faith in the dictates of the market, and removing workers rights to collectively bargain and eroding the strengths of the union...
PRIME MINISTER:
No. No, there is not a risk of that Steve. The reason is in the policy - the protection. I mean if we were, for example, freezing Awards, if we were doing things that prevented people having the right to choose to go into an Award; if we were denying unions the right to represent people; if we were making it impossible for people to collectively bargain, then you'd have a case. But the fairness, strength of this policy is it does offer people choice. We have, I believe, finally got to a situation where people have genuine choice and there's not a built-in bias in favour of institutionally driven arrangement, as distinct from one that's driven by the choice of the individual workplace.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard would you like to phase out unfair dismissals?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm sorry.
JOURNALIST:
Would you like to phase out entirely unfair dismissals...eventually?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we would like to do what I announced today, and no more and no less.
JOURNALIST:
PM you clearly paint this as a process of modernisation. How do you respond to Mr Beazley's claims only half an hour ago that this is 1970s driven ideological....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, have a look at what he said back in 1995 and 1996. I mean the world was going to come to an end; democracy would be undermined; people would be back in the salt mines. We had all of that rhetoric, and I got twenty minutes of it again today. I mean, there were was no attempt by Mr Beazley to engage the substance. I mean if we are going to have a serious debate about this issue, let us join issue on the substance and I say to those in the Labor Party and the unions and anybody else who say this is an anti-worker, an anti-living standards policy, that's what they said ten years ago and look what's happened over the last ten years. People are better off than they have ever been. I've been a better political friend of the Australian workers than anybody sitting opposite me in the Australian Labor Party.
JOURNALIST:
Business groups have asked the Government to go further than the 16 allowable matters, are you prepared to look at that in the future or do you think the 16 should stay?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look we have produced a balanced package. We haven't produced a package that just responds automatically to everything that business organisations have wanted. What we want to do now is what I announced and you will get the details when the legislation comes out but what we want is what I've announced.
JOURNALIST:
PM how do you reckon the Immigration Department is travelling at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the Immigration Department is under a lot of criticism, I understand that but I think the Palmer Inquiry should be allowed to report and both the Minister and the Head of the Department should have an opportunity of responding to that report before we start jumping to too many conclusions. Can I just make one comment about the 201 cases, which has attracted an enormous amount of attention today, and on the face of it, it's to be expected that it will attract that attention but I am told, and this is based on advice that I have received from the two Departments. I am told that during the period from July 2000 to April 2005, over 88,000 people were located and detained by DIMIA as suspected unlawful non-citizens or working in breach of their visa conditions. Now this is the Department doing what the Australian public expects it to do. I mean it's part of the Department of Immigration's job to do this and it's all very well when you have cases that are personalised and particularised to get stuck into the Department, but it is their job to do this. And I'm told that of these 88,000 201 individual cases fell into the category where a person was released after it was determined that they were not here unlawfully and that was 0.2 per cent of the number of people who were located. I'm told that the reason the Minister sent these 201 cases was that she had no way of knowing whether there might be another Rau or another Alvarez in that 201 so she said I'll send the whole 201 to Palmer for investigation. Now I think that's a Minister being transparent. I don't think that is a Minister being engaged in a cover-up. Now I'm told once again that these people represent a range of circumstances, including the need to establish identity, I'm told that half were detained for very short periods of three days or less. Now whether there are any other Rau's or Alvarez's in that 201 is something that will be determined. But when you look at the figures and you understand what the job is I want to hear more before I'm prepared to accept that in relation to those 201, the Department has done anything wrong.
JOURNALIST:
Do you still have full confidence in Minister Vanstone?
PRIME MINISTER:
I still have full confidence in Amanda, yes I do.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister it's not a good look when you and the Department are at odds over an individual case though is it, I mean you told Parliament yesterday the...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what I told Parliament was what I had been informed, and as you ask me about that particular case I've got something on that as well because I fully expected in your searching, piercing way you would come to that. I appear to have lost it but I'll have to try and call it to mind.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, no Michelle, I won't disappoint you on this. Can I just say that the decision, the family were infact, by decision of the Immigration Department, the family was brought to Perth in April, I think April or perhaps in March, because of the lady's, the obstetric issues that were involved with the pending birth of the child and they have been in community accommodation since that time. That was a decision that was taken by the Immigration Department and I was informed that she would not be automatically sent back to Christmas Island. I was informed by my own Department, and that was the basis of the answer that I gave yesterday and I have been informed again that the living in the community facility that was available before the birth of the child will continue and the family won't be forced to go back to Christmas Island; that is of a piece with the discretions the Department uses in these cases, there was no special decision made and the suggestion that I overruled the Minister and intervened because of media coverage of some of these things is plainly ridiculous when you realise that she was, the family was living in Perth in this special accommodation for some weeks before the birth of the child. The family is, you know, here illegally, that has to be understood, and the family is still pursuing some legal approaches about its status and in those circumstances we'll have to wait and see what the outcome is. The family can of course go back to Vietnam at any time.
JOURNALIST:
PM what about the evidence last night, and I'm sure you've heard that the the Department has found out about Alvarez, the message is being passed on and yet somehow a couple of times over the last couple of years it hasn't reached anywhere near the top it seems. I mean isn't that...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Matt, we're, as it were to use the legal expression, we're still part heard on that. On the face of it of course that sounds bad but I'd like to know the circumstances in fairness to the people. Okay?
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) Mr Howard that no-one has a visa yet despite you having a made a decision a couple of months ago on the new detainee's visas.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am getting some further briefing and some further advice on that issue and in those circumstances I'll take on notice your question.
Thank you.
[ends]