Focus stays on IR in campaign's final week

Updated November 19, 2007 01:22:00

John Howard and Kevin Rudd will spend the final five days of the election campaign traversing the nation in a frantic bid to lock in votes.

Prime Minister John Howard is in Western Australia warning against Labor's industrial relations plans.

The federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane says Labor is a threat to the WA mining boom.

"Kevin Rudd knows that if he is elected to government, then that will all go out the door and the future of the mining industry will be put at risk," he said.

"[His] removal of AWAs will have a significant impact on the viability of the mining industry and therefore the mining boom in Western Australia."

Labor's treasury spokesman Wayne Swan says its a diversion and a scare tactic.

"The question that Mr Howard has to answer is why have there been five interest rate rises since WorkChoices was introduced," he said.

"This is a government that's gone on a desperate spending spree and risked inflationary pressures in the economy, and now they're trying to camouflage their inaction and their complacency."

Mr Rudd and Mr Howard say they will not be sprinkling major spending announcements around in the next five days.

Topics: federal-election-2007, business-economics-and-finance, industrial-relations, government-and-politics, elections, federal-government, howard-john-winston, rudd-kevin, wa, australia

First posted November 19, 2007 00:00:00