Western Australia has recorded the lowest ever rate of days lost through industrial disputes.
Productivity and Labour Relations Minister Yvonne Henderson said today's ABS figure of 91 days lost per thousand employees, was the lowest since monthly disputation records were first kept in 1959.
"This record figure is a continuation of a downward trend since Labor came to power in WA in 1983," Mrs Henderson said.
"The total number of working days lost per year during the Liberals' reign was in the hundreds of thousands, reaching 393,000 in 1979.
"The total number of days lost in the last 12 months - October 1991 to October 1992 - was 49,800.
"Improving disputation figures have been a feature of the Labor Government, illustrating the success of our consultative approach to industrial relations and workplace reform.
"Less disputation brings economic benefits - greater productivity and better reputation, increasing investor confidence.
"The gains we have made over the past decade would all be undone by the Liberals' confrontationist approach.
"We do not need the sort of economic damage we are seeing in Victoria and could see here in WA under a Liberal Government.
Mrs Henderson said co-operation at all levels was essential to maintain the strength of the expanding WA economy.
The Government's emphasis was on non-adversarial labour relations, with genuine participation by the parties in the decision-making and enterprise agreements to reward increased productivity.
Almost 34,000 Western Australian workers were now covered by enterprise agreements.
WA's productivity had improved with these gains, ABS statistics showing the growth here to be 1.8 per cent of the past 10 years compared with 1.1 per cent nationally.
