Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

In this very important speech, Mr Blair said:

Indeed, around the world, a division is opening up, almost as pivotal as the traditional left and right, and that division is what I would characterise as: “open versus closed”.

The Labour Prime Minister went on to say:

The response to globalisation can be free trade, open markets, investment in the means of competition: education, science, technology. Or it can be protectionism, tariffs, tight labour market regulation, resistance to foreign takeovers.

That is a very important distinction that Mr Blair has drawn attention to, and I think the Labor Party should read his speech very carefully. Labor’s opposition to Work Choices, the misleading claims and the glib promises to tear up our laws really are just knee-jerk reactions to the demands of Labor’s union bosses. We know that. They ought to listen to Mr Blair. He said:

In this battle—“open versus closed”—those on the “open” side of the argument will meet fierce opposition. Yet the “closed” side of the argument in truth has nothing to offer a nation except the delusion that the tide of change can be turned back; or alternatively a weaker version of the same delusion, namely that hard choices can just be evaded.

Thankfully for our country, the coalition government has faced up to those hard choices and made the right decisions for Australia’s future.