Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We continue to work through with the government of Western Australia, and I was very pleased to see their cooperative attitude.

In coming to this parliament and playing politics with this matter, what the Leader of the Opposition is really betraying is that he does not care anything about the future of our country and the strength of our economy. First and foremost, I would say to the Leader of the Opposition: if he really thinks these major microeconomic reforms are so easy, why wasn't it achieved under the Howard government? In 11 long years, this microeconomic reform was never achieved under the Howard government. COAG after COAG, then Prime Minister John Howard would go and sit down with his counterparts and enter agreements saying that he was going to get it done, and it never got done. It took this Labor government to strike this agreement after more than a decade of neglect by those opposite.

If those opposite are in any doubt about the power of this agenda—this agenda we continue to pursue for a seamless national economy—then I suggest they put down their politics of protest for two or three minutes and actually go and talk to some of Australia's leading businesspeople who have been here in the parliament for the Business Council of Australia meeting. What they will find is not underestimation of the signifi­cance of this reform; they will find deep understanding of the significance of this reform. They will also, if the Leader of the Opposition wants to ask them, wonder with him why this reform was not progressed under the Howard government. So to the Leader of the Opposition I would say: when you have a track record of no achievement, it seems a little bit odd to be criticising those who have achieved.

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