Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

They did not have a plan then and they do not have one now. Perhaps they did not have a plan because they did not think they had a problem. Remember what our old friend the member for Higgins said? ‘We’ve got inflation exactly where we want it.’ The old ghost of Christmas past in by-election alley up here—he thinks he had inflation right where he wanted it. They did not have a plan because they did not think they had a problem. They left us with the highest underlying inflation in 16 years, and that was exactly where the former Treasurer wanted it. I am glad about that! It is not where we want it, it is not where the Reserve Bank wants it and it is not where any objective, serious economic commentator on the future of this nation would want it.

Perhaps that is why they were happy to leave Australia’s investment in education at 5.8 per cent of GDP—17th in the OECD, behind Poland and Hungary. They did not care about the supply side. They did not care about the skills and education crises in this country because they had inflation right where they wanted it. Perhaps that is why they were happy not to invest in infrastructure. Perhaps that is why they were happy not to invest in preschool education and to leave Australia’s investment in preschool education at one-fifth of the OECD average. They did not care. They did not think they had a problem. They did not have the wit to come up with a solution. They were happy to oversee a reduction in investment in higher education in Australia of seven per cent when the OECD average was an increase of 48 per cent. That is what they were happy to do. We have an alternative approach. We do have a plan.

We hear a lot about reform under the Howard-Costello years and what great economic reformers they were. We hear it almost universally from that side of the House. We do not hear other people commenting on that. We hear a lot about what great economic managers they were. Well, let us hear a bit more about it. Let us hear Andrew Charlton, the respected economist, who said:

… in the 1980s and early 1990s the Australian economy was wholly transformed. In the late 1990s and early 2000s it was merely tinkered with. Howard and Costello have been coasting.

They were coasting on the miner’s back, happy to let the commodity boom increase demand in Australia but not happy to make the important, fundamental reforms to the Australian economy, not happy to invest in infrastructure and skills to put downward pressure on inflation, not happy to invest further in our future by racing to the top by competing in skills and innovation—just happy for a race to the bottom by cutting wages and by cutting working conditions.

What are the implications of their lack of reform? Eleven interest rate increases in a row. What is the real impact of this? As a Western Sydney MP, I will tell you the real impact: housing foreclosures doubled and people are losing their homes. That is the real legacy of their government. There are other members here who are seeing this day after day, just like I am, across the country. These people are entitled to know not only what the plan of the alternative Treasurer of this country is but what he thinks. They might get an insight. He will remember walking through the doors of the parliament after an increase in interest rates under the previous government. We remember. What did he have to say? What was his comment? ‘I think the interest rate hike has been overdramatised.’ He said that there was not a problem.

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