Abbott backs Howard on IR laws rollback
Jeremy Thompson
Updated August 31, 2011 13:32:46/ABC News
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has given qualified support to John Howard's calls for a Coalition government to roll back Labor's IR reforms.
Saying the Gillard Government had swung "the pendulum to the other side", Mr Abbott endorsed the former prime minister's comments that Australia "has to wind back the re-regulation of the labour market".
Until now Mr Abbott has shied away from workplace reform, fearful of a repeat of the anti-WorkChoices campaign that helped topple the Howard government in 2007.
Last night on ABC TV's 7.30, Mr Howard said he would leave the tactics of labour reform to the Opposition.
But he said that "at some point this country has to wind back the re-regulation of the labour market".
"It's blindingly obvious that one of the worst mistakes Julia Gillard has made is to re-regulate the labour market. It is affecting our productivity and it will therefore affect our competitiveness," Mr Howard said.
Asked on Radio 3AW if he endorsed Mr Howard's remarks, Mr Abbott described Mr Howard as a "very, very shrewd observer" and added: "Essentially he is right."
"I think there is no doubt that the [Labor Government's] Fair Work legislation took the pendulum from one side and swung it right back to the other side," Mr Abbott said.
Asked if he meant deregulation of the labour market, Mr Abbott said: "I think we need freedom. I think we ought to be able to trust the businesses and the workers of Australia to come to arrangements which suit themselves."
Told that it sounds like "a version of WorkChoices", Mr Abbott moved to distance himself from the description.
"Look, we've gone over this time and time again. The fact of the matter is that it's in the past. It's absolutely in the past. We want to tackle the problems of now, not to dwell in the past."
The Howard government's WorkChoices laws provided for individual bargaining between companies and workers as well as excluding businesses under 100 employees from unfair dismissal laws.
Asked how his vision of workplace laws is different from WorkChoices, Mr Abbott said: "We want the businesses of Australia, the businesses that are currently under terrible pressure ... we want them to come to us and tell us how government can make it easier for them to compete and employ."
The issue has become a thorny one for Mr Abbott since former Liberal minister Peter Reith earlier this month raised the question of deregulating the labour market - particularly in the retail sector - and vowed to campaign on the issue. ...<cont>
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