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

They are listening; they are just pretending not to listen. They are engaged in deep conversation which, as those of you who are in question time will notice, will end the moment I stop talking. It is an elaborate charade from somebody who does not want to listen to the economic facts. It is all about the Australian people. You wonder why he does not understand productivity; it is because he does not listen to me at question time. Here I am; I am giving free tutorials, and all he does is engage in an elaborate charade. I will tender for him the speech of the Governor of the Reserve Bank and ask him to read it, and I will tender for him the interview with Paul Keating, Labor hero, the person who did everything good—according to him—in the Australian economy. I will make this point: Labor does not just want to go back to 1993 and it does not just want to go back 14 years; it wants to go back beyond to the prehistoric era of industrial relations, which will do nothing for the Australian economy.

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