Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to his 2007 declared war on drugs, his January 2008 declared war on inflation and yesterday’s declared war on unemployment. I also refer the Prime Minister to the 2007 ‘Rudd’s war on whalers’, the February 2008 ‘A war cabinet to fight disadvantage’, his February 2008 war on downloads, his March 2008 war on pokies, his May war against doping in sport and his October war on bankers’ salary deals. Prime Minister, how goes the war on everything?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I notice that at the end of the member for North Sydney’s question he spoke about a war on bankers’ salaries. I would have thought that that is an interesting observation, given the rolling critique about extreme capitalism coming from those opposite. If you were representing the interests of the merchant banking fraternity of Australia I could understand why you would have some concerns about that, but I will not dwell on that further. The core part of the member for North Sydney’s question is about unemployment.

Our attitude to dealing with the challenge of unemployment is that you can either simply wait for the global financial crisis to become a global economic crisis with real impacts on jobs and real impacts across communities in Australia and do nothing about it, or you can take action. We believe in taking action. That is why we have introduced a $10.4 billion Economic Security Strategy; that is why we have supported a $6.2 billion plan for the future of the Australian auto industry; and that is why we support a nation-building agenda for the future. That is because we believe in supporting growth and supporting jobs. This is a serious business, dealing with a serious problem brought about by a serious global financial crisis. It is a course of action to which the government is wedded. Can I suggest to the honourable member for North Sydney that, rather than simply engaging in petty political point-scoring, the nation would be better served if he joined with the government in a combined effort to deal with the challenges of the national economy.