Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Corangamite for his question. Overnight, the OECD released Economic policy reforms: going for growth 2007, which made recommendations for all of its members, including Australia. The OECD recommended five reforms that it believed would enhance growth and productivity in the Australian economy. The first was to ‘reform disability benefit schemes’. Mr Speaker, you would know that the government has been attending to this, against the opposition of the Labor Party—alas!—over the last couple of years.

The second thing the OECD recommended was to ‘improve upper-secondary education attainments’. You would know, Mr Speaker, that it is a focus on this that has led the government to introduce the Australian technical colleges and, indeed, to push standards under a national curriculum, because the secondary education system is mostly run by the states.

The third recommendation was to ‘strengthen competition in network industries’, such as electricity and telecommunications. Again, the government is focusing on this with the Australian energy market, which the Commonwealth has been leading at the national level.

The OECD recommended that withdrawal rates for means-tested benefits be lessened, and of course the government has been putting this in place over successive budgets, reducing withdrawal rates on pensions, on family payments, on Newstart allowance and on other payments.

The fifth thing which the OECD recommended was a phase-out or rationalisation of the award system, and members of the House will know that the Work Choices legislation is designed to make the Australian economy much more flexible.

May I stop there and say that most of these reforms were opposed by the Labor Party. The Labor Party opposed reforming the DSP system when we introduced it, and cried foul about it. The Labor Party has been attacking the government over technical colleges. The Labor Party, through its state branches, has not been cooperating to the degree it should have in relation to competition and national energy markets. The Labor Party never had the wit to reduce withdrawal rates, which this government has attended to in recent budgets. And, of course, the Labor Party defends the award system.

The Labor Party has been opposing all of these things which the government has been working on, just as it opposed balancing the budget, repaying debt, introducing the new tax system, reforming industrial relations and establishing the Future Fund. Then of course the Leader of the Opposition goes on television on the weekend and says: ‘Coalition policy is my policy on the economy. Don’t worry about my policy; it’s all the coalition’s policy.’ The people of Australia are not fooled by that. They are not fooled by the bloke who turns up after the house has been constructed and says: ‘It’s all my handiwork. I might have opposed you when you were laying the foundations, tried to stop you putting up the frame, delayed the delivery of the tiles and kept the plumber away, but it’s all my work.’ That is the way the Leader of the Opposition approaches economic debate, and he is probably one of the best of them.

I am asked what other models there are. One of the models that seem to have a lot of appeal to the Labor Party is the Venezuelan model—Hugo Chavez. Let me remind the House that Labor has signatories to an invitation to President Chavez to come to Australia so that he can talk to us here in Brutopia about how to improve things. It says:

... what Venezuela has been able to achieve in so little time will be a source of inspiration and ideas for many in Australia.

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