PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYMENT

Mr GRIFFITHS (Goyder) (14:48): My question is to the Minister for Industrial Relations. How many public sector jobs will need to be cut for the government to achieve the $290 million savings target in public sector wages costs set by the Treasurer in the 2009-10 budget? The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union will reportedly seek to use the new workplace laws, starting today, to pursue annual pay rises of between 4 and 6 per cent across 1,300 agreements, with better performing companies to be hit with claims of up to 6 per cent, while the Treasurer has decreed that a 2.5 per cent cap on public sector wage increases must be pursued.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON (Elder—Minister for Transport, Minister for Infrastructure, Minister for Energy) (14:49): On behalf of the Treasurer, can I say that the Treasurer has brought down a tremendous budget that has maintained a historic level of infrastructure spending and has been able to exercise restraint in recurrent expenditure and preserve the state's AAA credit rating.

There is no doubt that one of the things that will underpin restraint in the future will be wage restraint. I am not going to comment on the metal workers and what they pursue in the private sector. What I can say is that everyone on this side of the house is committed to achieving the wage outcomes in the public sector set out in the budget. The Treasurer has said this a number of times, but there are two manners in which the current expenditure can be saved in government: one is restraint in wage outcomes; and the other is fewer people receiving wages.

There is no doubt that our preference is to achieve the restraint through restraint in wages. Mo matter what the metal workers want to say and what they want to do in the private sector, I point out that inflation forecasts are very moderate and that the wage outcomes' forecast in this budget will allow people to meet inflationary pressures, that is, their real wages will be protected if the inflation figures are correct, and we believe they are. We stand by that. I would be interested to know whether you think they should get more, because I do know that when we come into this place regularly the Liberal Party is apparently the great champion of the workers.

I remember the member for Morphett's ferocious commitment to make sure that the WorkCover changes did not—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Of course, the ferocious commitment did not last that long; and Mitch, of course, crossed the floor to vote against WorkCover provisions to preserve the right of entry for unions. So, they do have a rather muddled—

An honourable member interjecting:

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: I am sure that went down well back in Millicent—the member for MacKillop's preservation of the right of entry for unions. He went further than Julia Gillard did. But, that's all right, he is capable of having more than one view on a subject, apparently.

The Hon. J.D. Hill: Remarkably flexible.

The Hon. P.F. CONLON: Remarkably flexible for a bloke of his size. What I would say is that the opposition, if it were real, would do something. It would support the notion of public sector wage restraint. It would support that. It is in the interests of the state. It might, in fact, support the bill that we have in the upper house in terms of government reform. What we do know is that the business community shakes its head in disbelief at the various positions this opposition takes; and, from what I have seen, nothing seems likely to change in the future.

I would note, and I have to say this, that the federal Liberal member Christopher Pyne did in fact seek to—what was the phrase? He came to bury Caesar but he seems likely to inter Brutus instead.