Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Does the Prime Minister recall making the following statement to parliament in 1992 expressing his longstanding views on industrial relations. He said:

... we believe that such matters as penalty rates, the length of the working week, overtime, holiday loadings and all of those things that are holding back the needed flexibility in Australia’s industrial relations system ought to be matters for negotiation between employers and employees. We do not shy away from that. We do not walk away from it for a moment.

Does the Prime Minister stand by this statement? Does it not reflect his consistent attitude to penalty rates and overtime throughout his political career?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I certainly would have made a statement to that effect then, yes—I would have. That is not in any way inconsistent with the argument we are now putting that, if those things are traded away, there should be fair compensation in return.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You didn’t believe that then.

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know what all the fuss is about.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You believe that pre-election.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is of course a difference between me and the Leader of the Opposition. The things which I say I now stand for have been matched by the attitudes I have taken both in government and in opposition. The Leader of the Opposition’s problem in the great debate about economic credibility is the words of the old saying, ‘Don’t listen to what I say; have a look at what I do.’

In the time that he has been in parliament, this person who aspires to be Prime Minister of this country has voted with his colleagues in the Labor Party against every major economic reform that this government has put up. I have a division list here. Within weeks of the member for Griffith being sworn in after the 1998 election—indeed, on 10 December 1998—I find the name ‘Mr Rudd’ amongst the 67 noes who voted against the new taxation system. Here is the division list. There is a mountain of division lists that will be produced in this place that will attest to not the economic conservatism but, rather, the economic-wrecking instincts of the Leader of the Opposition. He voted against taxation reform, he voted against industrial relations reform, he voted with his colleagues to stop the budget being put into surplus—

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Kerr interjecting

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Denison is warned!

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

he voted against the sale of Telstra, which helped to fund the elimination of our $96 billion national debt left by courtesy of his colleagues. His frontbench colleague says, ‘Oh, we believe in a $5 billion higher education fund.’ The only problem is that, if the Leader of the Opposition had his way, there would be no surplus out of which that $5 billion fund could be established.

The truth is that every single opportunity the Leader of the Opposition and his colleagues have had in this place over the last 11 years to put to rights the wrongs that they left us in 1996 has been passed up. Now he is asking the Australian people to forget about the last 11 years—‘Don’t look at the fact that I oppose tax reform, I oppose paying off our debt, I oppose getting the budget back into surplus, I oppose industrial relations reform, I oppose the sale of Telstra. Don’t look at any of that; forget all about that. Airbrush that out of my record and out of Australian political history. Just believe me: I am reformed and I believe in responsible economic management.’

I say to the Leader of the Opposition through you, Mr Speaker, that, in the great debate about economic credibility, the Australian people will be reminded with increasing frequency, with increasing scrutiny and in an increasingly meticulous way of the failure of the Leader of the Opposition in all the years he has been in this place since 1998 to demonstrate that he has the credentials to call himself economically responsible.