Dick Adams (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was very interested to hear the Leader of the Opposition speak on his MPI a little while ago. He got to talking about job losses and the emissions trading scheme. He then attacked the Prime Minister and said that the Prime Minister was changing colours a lot and whatever—it did not make a lot of sense. But then I realised that he was trying to defend himself because he is the one that has been changing colours daily. Sometimes a couple of times on the same day he has changed from one policy position to another. He got onto Castro and communism. He went through a whole range of things—neoliberal-ism and social democrats.

Of course he is getting confused. I think the public are getting a bit confused. I understand that 70 per cent or so of the banks in England are owned by government. I do not know if that is socialism or capitalism. I think the general public are getting a little confused as well as to the economic system that we are working under. But there are extraordinary times applying to our world and to our economic structures. The Leader of the Opposition went on to talk about jobs and how the opposition believe in jobs, jobs and jobs. But of course we know that they have opposed all the measures that this government has brought in which would help stimulate our economy and help save and keep jobs.

They—that side of the House—are the ones who supported Work Choices. They were the ones who brought that bill in. They are the ones that are continuing to support that concept. Of course we know that there was always Work Choices, which was to tear away conditions and tear down wages for ordinary working Australians. Neoliberals and conservatives have that whole ‘get paid less than a living wage but you can get a dip out of the church box to feed your family’ view. It does not seem to have changed much. They are still supporting that basic concept without really wanting to change. If they did want to change, they would not be opposing the Fair Work Bill that is in the Senate at this very moment.

So the inconsistency of the Liberal Party and the Leader of the Opposition comes through constantly to this side of the House and also, I think, to the general public. It is starting to jump out when I talk to my constituency that there is a very inconsistent position from the opposition. Whether that is stimulatory packages, emissions trading, climate change or whatever, there is a real inconsistency happening there.

The Leader of the National Party talked about the government ‘throwing out jobs’; he said jobs were being thrown out by government. I do not think the government has made a policy decision to dismiss anybody, so that was a bit hard to understand. In his whole delivery he did not mention that there is a world financial crisis going on which is making it difficult for all governments and all economic systems to be working well and that it is having an effect right across the world. But of course we know that our economy is coping to some degree with this and we are hopeful that, with the stimulation packages and our policy decisions, this government will help the economy from going into a very bad depression.

There have been a lot of positive things said in recent days about how long the world economies will continue to go down. So I would be hopeful that, with the way that we are operating and the way this government is dealing with these crises, we can look forward to the future—hopefully coming out of this within a year or two in a more positive way. I am sure that the pensioners that received their cash— (Time expired)

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