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

Nothing. It was a day so bad that it would be remembered in the history of the 20th century and yet, if he is elected, he intends to do all of nothing about it.

Members of the House will recall that the Luddites were the 19th-century mobs that opposed economic reform and smashed textile machines. Let me come to this century. People will remember that the economic ‘Ruddites’ were the people who opposed tax reform, the balancing of the budget, the paying off of debt, independent monetary policy, industrial relations reform and union control being broken on the waterfront. You do not become an economic conservative with a good advertising agency. The Leader of the Opposition is no economic conservative; he is an economic ‘Ruddite’ who has opposed all of the reforms that got us to where we now are and he has no credibility in directing economic policy for the future.

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