Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In recent weeks the new Labor government have directed serious energy towards constructing a narrative about their economic policy. They have cast themselves as being on the side of the ‘poor’ versus the ‘rich’. They have self-labelled themselves as Robin Hood taking on the rich in our country. It is an attempt to claim the role of a hero that acts against a perceived injustice. But what the Rudd Labor government fails to recognise is that wealth today in our society and in our modern industrial economy is earned; it is not taken off people as it was in Robin Hood’s day. For Labor to cast themselves as Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to the poor is an insult to all working families, who would be insulted to be defined as poor.

Last century there were many socialist, communist and left-of-centre governments that acted on the basis of this idea. Each attempt by these socialist, communist and left-of-centre governments resulted in economic misery on an unimaginable scale. Attempts by government to equalise wealth have been shown throughout history to end in disaster. The most recent attempts are close at hand. You only have to take a trip through a former communist or socialist country to witness what happens when a government acts on the principle that it is Robin Hood taking from the rich in a modern industrial economy where wealth is earned through hard work, determination, innovation, risk taking and doing a job. The Rudd-Swan budget, far from being the Robin Hood budget of the new era, is actually espousing policies that will see the return of welfare dependency, long-term unemployment and a deliberate strategy of bringing down anyone who aims to do better for themselves or their family. In particular, it will not create a better Australia by classing everyone over an arbitrary line of $150,000 as rich and everyone under that level as poor.

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