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

of the way in which the union bosses are taking over the parliamentary Labor Party in this place. We have Don Farrell—you have not heard of him, but he is coming. He is the National President of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and he is coming into a Senate spot in South Australia. We have Richard Marles, the Assistant Secretary of the ACTU, who is coming in in Corio—and doesn’t Gavan know that he is coming in in Corio—and we have Kevin Harkins. He is the Assistant Secretary of the Electrical Trades Union and he is coming in in Franklin.

Additionally, there are an army of other union bosses running in coalition held marginal seats. Note that the trade union bosses elite all have very safe seats. They look after their own, don’t they? You do not have Greg Combet running in a marginal seat. You do not have Richard Marles running in a marginal seat. They knock off sitting members and the elite, the creme de la creme, of the ACTU bosses are coming into this place via very safe seats. Of course, they are joining the member for Batman, the member for Hotham, the member for Throsby and other office holders of the ACTU who already sit here.

It is no wonder that one of the central commitments of the Leader of the Opposition is to overturn the historic reforms to Australia’s industrial relations system. What he will do if he becomes Prime Minister is roll back for the first time a major economic reform. It will be the first time in a generation that a major economic reform is being rolled back. But it is hardly surprising, because in the 11 years that the Labor Party have been in opposition they have behaved as irresponsibly as they intend to behave if they become the government of this country after the next election. They opposed getting the budget back into surplus, they opposed paying off $96 billion of government debt, they opposed taxation reform, they opposed waterfront reform and they opposed the second round of industrial relations reform; yet they would have the Australian public believe that their economic credentials are the same as the coalition’s. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to be taken seriously as a fiscal conservative, he has to explain to the Australian people why, since he entered the parliament in 1998—and I remind him that the very first significant vote he cast after entering the parliament in 1998 was against taxation reform, on 10 December 1998—he and his colleagues have consistently voted against all of the reforms that have given us the economic prosperity we now enjoy.

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