Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Materiel) Share this | Hansard source

It is a scandal. I have done the calculations because I like my beer. Based on the former CPRS, you would have to buy 3,000 beer cartons before it would cost you an extra dollar—a serious scare campaign! I think the people of Australia deserve better than that. I think they deserve better than 15 minutes of bile. They got 25 minutes of bile from the Leader of the Opposition today. They deserve better than the 18 months of incompetence that we have seen from this Leader of the Opposition and they certainly deserve better than another dodgy Liberal scare campaign.

When it comes to the Liberal Party, we know they have form when it comes to dodgy scare campaigns. In the 1950s, it was reds under the bed. In the 1970s, it was China. The Liberal Party said that Whitlam's engagement with China was 'a daemonic game of mahjong'. In the 1980s, the great scare campaign was Medicare. This is what they said at the time about Medicare: 'A total and complete failure; a financial monster; a human nightmare.' That is what the Liberal Party said about Medicare in the 1980s. In the 1990s, it was native title. They said that you would lose your backyard. In the 1990s, it was compulsory superannuation as well. They said that the introduction of compulsory superannuation would destroy the economy and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. On all of these counts, whether it was reds under the bed, China, Medicare, native title or compulsory superannuation, they were wrong, and it is all not so scary anymore. Medicare is now the cornerstone of our health system. Native title did not take anyone's backyard. Superannuation did not destroy jobs; it actually created them. Instead of the 100,000 jobs that the Liberal Party feared would be lost, the superannuation industry created 60,000 jobs. It was one of the most important economic reforms of the 20th century. The same arguments are being made by the Liberal Party now that were made then—that it would destroy the economy, that it would kill jobs. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. On all of the big calls, the Liberal Party and the Leader of the Opposition have got it wrong—yet they have the absolute gall to come into this House and raise a discussion about competency.

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