Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will just take a moment to put something on the public record. The member for Hotham reminisced a lot about Labor’s trade policy and the position that they left the country in as far as trade and income and outgoings of the wine and brandy industry and private investors within that industry were concerned. It is worth revisiting that Labor’s trade strategy was to lower Australia’s credit rating from a AAA rating to a AA rating, creating a circumstance by which people in the wine and brandy industry, the sugar industry and small businesses throughout my electorate, the electorate of Kingston and the electorate of Farrer had to pay interest rates of 23 and 24 per cent because the risk associated with Australia was far higher as a result of Labor’s approach to managing the economy and to trade policy in those industries. It is also worth noting that, as a result of Labor’s trade policy and Labor’s administration of the wine and brandy industry, the sugar industry, the economy generally and trade policy in particular, we saw at the end of the Hawke and Keating years a $93 billion government debt, which was overseas money brought into the economy at the expense of any domestic borrower, making money in this country more expensive.

For the record I will say that the member for Hotham certainly was not intoxicated by any alcoholic beverage; I did not mean that. But there was a power drunkenness about the concepts in his presentation today, which were divorced from the subject at hand. If he wants to introduce trade policy and economic policy in the sugar industry as well as the wine and brandy industry, it must be stated clearly that Labor in government achieved a higher level of interest rates at their absolute lowest than the coalition in government has achieved with interest rates at their absolute highest—an average of eight per cent under us and an average of 10 per cent under them. I simply put that on the record because the member for Hotham has introduced the question of Labor in its international dealings somehow or other having greater prowess—$93 billion worth of international capital and a AAA rating slammed down to AA. It is now back to AAA because of good economic management. I rest my case.

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