Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

He was John Howard the Treasurer then. He was the former Treasurer, the current Prime Minister—if it assists you, Mr Deputy Speaker. The government had no effective wages policy. Wages were out of control. The then Prime Minister and the then Treasurer proposed a solution, which was to freeze wages. They sought to blame workers again. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? They cannot manage the economy so the solution is to hit workers again. Their proposal in 1982 was to freeze wages. People might like to remember it. It was Labor, when it came to office, that unfroze them and introduced the prices and incomes accord, which laid the basis for this nation’s prosperity. For the first time it delivered a wages policy that did not drive inflationary pressures, a wages policy that actually delivered low inflation and low interest rates. We did it through wage trade-offs. We said that we should not just put the cost onto the employer but that we had to deliver fairness in the workplace and, rather than doing that through wages, we would do it through disposable income, tax cuts and what was referred to as the social wage—family payments, family benefits. We introduced groundbreaking initiatives such as superannuation, so we were able to deliver income for people in their retirement, not just when they were working. These Labor initiatives were opposed root and branch by the Liberal Party. They never supported any of our initiatives to establish compulsory superannuation in this country. And they say they were the builders? They were the wreckers. The only people who have built the prosperity of this nation have been members of the Labor Party. We did it in the period from 1982-83 to 1996. We will do it again if we are given the chance.

This government has inherited the golden goose. It has inherited the prosperity that we never had. It has inherited a resources boom, driven essentially by the huge and sustained growth in China. That presents many challenges to us, not the least of which is how we perform on export markets. But under this government, despite the resources boom, we have been performing appallingly. Labor, in its 13 years of office, was able to grow exports every year by eight per cent. This government, in its 11 years, with a resources boom over the last five, has only been able to grow exports by four per cent. It has halved the rate of growth in exports, despite the strongest resources boom almost in the history of this country. It is not a good economic manager. People deserve tax relief but they also deserve a government that introduces and develops policies that lay the prosperity for this nation. You cannot pay for anything unless you have that prosperity. It has to be sustained prosperity, but there has to be fairness in its distribution. The people who built the prosperity, who laid the basis for this nation’s prosperity today, have been members of the labour movement. I say that in the broadest sense, because so often we get criticism and ridicule from those opposite about the influence of the trade union movement.

I am proud to be a member of a trade union. I am proud to have led the trade union movement, but not just for self-interest and their benefit. I wanted to lead an organisation and a structure that drove forward, with purpose, the future direction for this country. I firmly believe this: if people participate constructively in contributing to growth, they should be entitled to fairness and a fair say in its distribution. So I have no qualms about sitting down with the trade union movement at any stage and arguing distribution. My only challenge to them—and it always has been; and when I led them I insisted on this—is that you have to be part of the wealth creation. You cannot just argue about distribution; you have to be part of the wealth creation mechanism. The labour movement has been a proud contributor to wealth creation in this country, and I have been proud to be part of a movement in many guises that has contributed as such.

We welcome these tax cuts, but we also say that after 11 years, for the first time ever, this government has targeted the right people first. And the only people who have ever consistently looked after them in this country have been the Labor Party. We look forward to having the opportunity to represent them again from that side of the chamber, because they will get a better deal in the future just as they did in the past under us. (Time expired)

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