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

I think the record speaks for itself: continuous economic growth of 3½ per cent per annum, inflation averaged at 2½ per cent per annum, two million additional jobs, unemployment falling from 8½ per cent to 4½ per cent, interest rates falling from 10½ per cent to eight per cent, a budget deficit of $10 billion turning into a budget surplus of $10 billion, $96 billion worth of debt paid off, $100 billion of superannuation liabilities now provisioned with $50 billion of the Future Fund and an endowment fund that will rebuild Australia’s educational capacity forever. I think that, if Australians look at the record of this government and compare it with the record of the predecessor government of the Labor Party, they will draw their own conclusions.

Having said that, let me make a couple of points in relation to productivity. The first point is that productivity will be enhanced in the Australian economy by a better industrial relations system. There would be nobody in Australia who would believe that by going back to collective bargaining and getting rid of AWAs you would do anything other than detract from productivity. The people who think that include Sir Rod Eddington, the Labor Party adviser in relation to industrial relations, the person the Deputy Leader of the Opposition dismissively refers to as ‘another voice’—

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