Mr GILES (Scullin) (16:02): It is a pleasure to join in this matter of public importance debate brought on by the shadow minister, the member for Gorton, and it is a pleasure to take up one remark of the member for Longman. He spoke of a fundamental divide between our parties—and I agree with him. This is the most fundamental divide. We are the party of jobs—the high-skill, high-wage, secure jobs of the future, providing the decent wages and conditions that are the bedrock of our social compact. They have no regard for these things that are fundamental—not just to people's working lives but right across people's lives—to maintaining their living standards and a decent society. The member for Longman, the youngest member in the parliament, apart from speaking of the China free trade agreement, which I will return to in a minute, could only take us to history rather than any vision of jobs for the future: a homily of Winston Churchill's, and a ridiculous rewriting of the Hawke-Keating years—an obsession of members opposite. Perhaps they could focus more on the record of achievement of their government rather than traducing a great Labor government of the eighties. I will just say this: in terms of his confidence in respect of ChAFTA, it is entirely misplaced, as any fair reading of the agreement shows. It will do nothing for Australian jobs, other than to put wages and conditions seriously under threat. The member for Macquarie spoke of scaremongering on the part of opposition members— Ms Ryan: And xenophobia. Mr GILES: And xenophobia. What an offensive remark! But back to scaremongering. We saw the hubris of the Treasurer in question time on jobs. The Treasurer cannot bring himself to mention the number 6.3, the percentage of unemployed, or 800,000, the number of people out of work under his government and his stewardship of the Australian economy. For us to call this government out on that is not scaremongering; it is doing our job. It is standing up for those 800,000 people and their families. It is standing up for them—something this government refuses to do. Let us think about youth unemployment. Let us think about the tragedy that, in some parts of my electorate—and, I know, in my friend the member for Lalor's electorate—it is creeping up towards one in four young people out of a job, with no real plan for jobs from this government. This is a government that cut away supports like Youth Connections at a critical time of transition in manufacturing areas. Let us also think about the anaemic wages growth that we have had for those who are in work. Minister Abetz, when he kicked off this great journey towards the Productivity Commission to try and resurrect Work Choices, spoke of a wages explosion. What a joke that is! How out of touch can this bloke be? This is, of course, the man who does not regard workers as anything more than disposable units, as he demonstrated so clearly—so starkly—in effectively endorsing the dismissal of 100 workers by text messages and emails sent just before midnight. It is treating people as commodities, not as human beings. Late last year he was rewarded for his bad behaviour by the Treasurer, who sent off Minister Abetz's Christmas wish list to the Productivity Commission just before Christmas, hoping nobody would notice. Let us be clear about this. The Productivity Commission's terms of reference put everything that might matter to anyone who works for a living up for grabs. The draft report is worthy of consideration—although it is not of great interest to members opposite, it seems. It does contain an inconvenient truth. It recognises that the institutional framework we have is actually not too bad; it is working. It is working much better than its predecessor, in terms of productivity in particular. It also recognises that the labour market is not like other markets—a matter the member for Longman should have regard to. It recognises that it affects people's lives and their expectations for their future and for that of their families, and that, most often, employees alone are not as strong as employers in bargaining for reasonable workplace treatment. That is a matter that members opposite should reflect upon. It is unfortunate that some recommendations of the Productivity Commission do not acknowledge this. I think about the pathway back to Work Choices in abandoning the better-off-overall test and the proposal for enterprise contracts. Let us be clear: whatever good is in the report, it is a dishonest road map back to Work Choices and back to the poverty of vision that this government and conservatives have had for 20 years for the world of work—to their lack of regard for the social compact, their lack of regard for jobs, and their lack of concern for inequality, despite the growing evidence that inequality is harmful for growth. Perhaps members opposite and the minister at the dispatch box should take a lesson from this contribution— (Time expired)