Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this adjournment debate I wish reflect for a moment on issues relating to employment. I have been surprised about the extent to which members opposite have ignored the advice of one of their colleagues Mark Latham, a former leader of the Labor Party. He wrote a piece in today's newspaper about the need for an economy that grows and generates wealth and opportunity if you are going to create wealth. It was an article that also reflected upon former Labor leaders such as Paul Keating, whom he took the opportunity to quote. I often speak about the nature of our economy because I think a lot of people fail to understand that, to generate jobs and to generate opportunities, there needs to be markets, there needs to be wealth generation. In many respects, the Labor Party, in office over a period of time, has been sapping from our economy the opportunity to generate that wealth.

My late father was an economist. I am not, but I took note of what he had to say. He used to speak about the Liberal Party and the Labor Party philosophies. He said that the Liberal Party is the party that has the philosophy of generating greater wealth, growing a bigger cake. He said the Labor Party's expertise is only in how you cut it up. And I have seen, in my time in public life, all of that. It may have been seen by members opposite that it was unfortunate that the Labor Party was out of office for some 23 years between 1949 and 1972, but it did have a very significant impact. People do not reflect upon it very often, but the impact was to produce a government that was in a hurry. It had some views, some views about policy, which invariably cost money, and it determined to pursue them all at once.

There might be some people around Sydney who were glad that they put a bit of effort into sewering parts of Sydney that had not been sewered. There may have been some people in the country who were glad that they established the department—I think it was called DURD—that was about regional development. I could go further and emphasise the large number of programs that involved extraordinary amounts of expenditure because I know that, at the time I came into public life, the impact of these programs on the Australian economy were disastrous. They generated enormous inflation, they increased unemployment and, while it was thought that these were beneficial programs, they did an enormous amount of harm.

I would have to say, and I do not speak about these things a lot in the House, that, surprisingly, Paul Keating and Bob Hawke did learn some lessons from the Whitlam administration. One of those lessons was that you needed to have an economy that was capable of generating wealth. And they did embark upon some economic reforms, although not all of those that were necessary. I suspect the Labor Party that came into office in 2007 had lost some of those lessons that Hawke and Keating had learnt. They came in wanting to implement programs, all of which involved expenditure of money, but had no idea about how they were going to generate growth in the Australian economy to be able to afford them. We are suffering now a great deal when we lament the extent to which unemployment is growing in our economy today. It is because of a failure of policy on the part of the former government. They want to blame this side, after we have been in office for a matter of three or four months, but the responsibility lies properly with the Labor Party in relation to those issues that they have raised.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being nearly 5 pm, the debate is interrupted.

House adjourned at 16:59

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Hon. BC Scott ) took the chair at 9:30.