John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bass for his question. It is an undeniable fact that the strength of the Australian economy in 2007 is a direct result of 20 years of economic reform—indeed, perhaps a generation of economic reform. The real essence of the debate about Work Choices that is going on in this chamber and around the nation is whether, for the first time, this nation is going to be so unwise as to reverse one of the great economic reforms of the last generation, which has given us the prosperity we now have.

It would be unthinkable for anybody to propose to re-regulate the exchange rate, to reimpose foreign exchange controls and to go back to the old days of a regulated financial system. It would, I think, be unimaginable that we would seek to reimpose tariffs as a method of protecting Australian industry. It would be unimaginable that we would go back to the pre-1998 days in relation to the Australian waterfront, when the crane rates were 17 or 18 an hour. They are now 27 or 28.

It would surely be unimaginable if we were to reverse the new taxation system to bring back the wholesale sales tax, to overturn the introduction of the GST or to turn our backs on all the hard-won reforms that existed there. It would be unimaginable that this country should go back into deficit, that we should accumulate $96 billion of government debt. It would surely be unimaginable—and even the Australian Labor Party has indicated that it would be unimaginable—that we should seek to renationalise former government owned enterprises such as Telstra, Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank.

Therefore, that recitation, that statement of the obvious, makes a very clear and compelling point: that what the Labor Party is proposing to do in relation to Work Choices is to reverse a generation of economic reform that has been contributed to by both sides of politics in Australia.

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