Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Nothing could be more important for Australia, as we go into the 21st century, than that we have a flexible economy that is able to adjust to international shocks; one where, in relation to industrial relations, we have the ability to contract between employers and employees; where there is flexibility in the workplace; and where the influence of trade unions being able to dictate, out of political objectives, is not enforced—as the Leader of the Opposition, paying tribute to his political masters, wants to do. This country needs a flexible industrial relations system; it does not need a return to the 20th and sometimes the 19th century, going backwards under the anti-reform party, the Australian Labor Party.

See this speech in context