Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw. There are two standards in this place and I will observe the standard that applies to us, so therefore I withdraw. The Prime Minister then gave an answer to another question. You could see his handling of this issue in the current circumstances in which he finds himself because he knows he is going to be confronting a great deal of suffering amongst the Middle Australians he has so fundamentally betrayed. What he had to say in his remarks then was that the Reserve Bank had acted in a timely fashion, that the Reserve Bank needed to do what it did because of the circumstances it confronted in managing this economy.

The Reserve Bank has had an awful lot to say, which is why over the weekend we in the opposition suggested there needed to be a mini-budget here. The Reserve Bank has been quite explicit for some considerable time now about the reasons. It has said there is pressure on interest rates, and the thing that it is talking about is not the state of international markets and not the state of international oil prices. It has talked about explicit capacity constraints in the Australian economy, the resolution of which is in the gift of the government. That is what the Reserve Bank has been talking about. I will cite a few examples:

The clearest indication of emerging pressures on capacity has been in the disappointing performance of exports to date, which has been associated with a widening of Australia’s current account deficit.

…         …         …

… supply constraints, including much-publicised capacity constraints in rail and port infrastructure, have begun to hamper export growth.

…         …         …

Sharp increases in wages have also been reported in localised parts of the business services sector where skill shortages are particularly acute.

That was February 2005. March 2005:

Over recent months, it has become increasingly clear that remaining spare capacity in the labour and goods markets is becoming … limited.

May 2005:

… labour shortages are becoming increasingly broad-based across industries and skill levels.

I can go through another 10 quotes on that, bringing them right up to this last month, and through about three interest rate rises while they have been doing that. The simple fact of the matter is this, and we have been driving this point home to the Australian people over the course of the last 18 months: this government disinvested in critical areas of public investment over the course of 10 years, which has now severely jeopardised the Australian economy and is forcing interest rates up. In the area of public investment in higher education and in TAFE training, the figure is minus eight per cent.

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