Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will briefly do it for Senator Conroy's benefit. According to the Gini coefficient, Tasmania is the most equal but it is also the poorest. That is one of the fundamental issues. You can have a Gini coefficient, you can have all these measures that say, 'Tasmania is more equal than WA. Isn't that a wonderful thing?'. I would prefer to see an economy are in as quickly as WA's, lifting incomes across the board, than to see Tasmania's economy, which has not been growing but where everyone is more equal. We bring everyone together. We bring everyone down. That is the Left's way of doing things. That is how you make everyone equal. If there is no economic growth we will all be more equal.

I will give some more figures. I completely disagree with Senator Siewert's comment, which is actually talking Australia down. If you look at the economic growth that actually occurred under a former Labor government, the Hawke-Keating government—it was different with the last Labor government—and under the Howard government we did see incomes rising across the board. Isn't that a wonderful thing? Isn't that something we should be celebrating, as those at the bottom see their income going up in real terms? They see their opportunities going up. In some cases, those at the top end are going up a bit faster. Is that really the fundamental issue? Would we rather see the Tasmanian experience, where everyone grows slowly together and grows closer together, or the WA experience, where we see faster growth, a stronger economy and, low and behold, those at the bottom in WA—

Opposition senators interjecting—