Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Has the Prime Minister seen the AAP report of 1.51 today entitled: ‘People better able to deal with rate rises now: Turnbull’? Following his earlier comment that the impact of interest rate increases on working families should not be overdramatised, doesn’t today’s statement just demonstrate yet again how out of touch the member for Wentworth and your government are?

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

The Prime Minister is not required to comment, but I will call the Prime Minister.

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

I have not seen that report, but I can assure you that the member for Lilley is wrong in saying that the member for Wentworth is out of touch. I have found the member for Wentworth, in matters relating not only to economics but also to his own portfolio area, to be very, very much in touch. I think he knows a bit more about economics than you do.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

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

Order! The minister for employment!

Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I seek leave to table the comments.

Leave granted.

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

The member for Wentworth has had some experience in putting into practice his economic beliefs. He has some acquaintance with the business community and he demonstrates a better understanding of economics than anybody who sits over there. The truth is that those who sit opposite do not have an economic plan of their own for Australia’s future. Those who sit opposite are desperately trying to agree with the government and practising what I call ‘echo-nomics’. The member for Lilley reminds me a bit of my childhood. My parents used to take me to a place called Katoomba in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales. The first spot we went to was Echo Point. You would stand there at Echo Point and look out to Mount Solitary and when you called something out the echo would come back. I am reminded a bit about that in the parliament these days. You stand up here and you say ‘budget surplus’ and ‘budget surplus’ comes back. You say ‘rigorous monetary policy’ and ‘rigorous monetary policy’ comes back.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: this was a question about interest rate increases and their impact on working families.

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

I am listening carefully to the Prime Minister. I call the Prime Minister.

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

Can I say in relation to working families that there has not been an echo because when Labor was in office there were fewer working families than there are now. The echo did not work. Let me say again—and it is a very, very serious point to make in this place—that the man who sits opposite me does not have a plan of his own for Australia’s economic future. He either mouths a platitudinous agreement with things that we have done and practices what I call ‘echo-nomics’ or, alternatively, when he cannot do that and he is told what he has to do by the trade union movement, he advocates policies that are dangerous to Australia’s future. This country wants as its leader somebody who has got some plans of his own—not plans that are an expeditious echo of those of others or the dictatorial requirements of an out of touch trade union movement.