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

He had lots of advice, as the member for Blaxland reminds me. He had some advice for the Labor Party. I have made the point over and over again in this House that you do not become an economic conservative just because a focus group tells you that is what the public wants to hear and that you do not become an economic conservative just because you cut an advertisement to that effect. Politics is about substance; it is not about focus group and poll driven advertising agencies. That is the way I make the point. I must say Mr Keating made the point in a far more colourful way. He said:

The Labor Party is not going to profit from having these proven unsuccessful people around who are frightened of their own shadow and won’t get out of bed in the morning unless they’ve had a focus group report to tell them which side of bed to get out.

Of course, we know he was speaking about none other than the member for Lilley, who, Mr Keating says, cannot get out of bed in the morning until the focus group says the left or the right. Half the time, he tries to get out on both sides of the bed in the morning. With an economy which has grown at 1.6 per cent in the March quarter, with unemployment low at 4.2 per cent, you cannot afford to make errors and mistakes. This is now a supercharged economy. It is like a Formula One racing car. It is highly calibrated. If a driver in this highly calibrated Formula One racing car takes a bend at six inches or six centimetres too wide, he is going to have a crash. This is not the time to be experimenting with the L-plate drivers of the Australian Labor Party. This is a time when you need experience. This is not a time to go back to union control in the labour market because all of that could unsettle this economy. Now more than ever, in a highly calibrated economy, you need strong economic management—the economic management of the coalition.

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