Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Financial Services, Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Hansard source

We have five minutes to go, and the honourable member is getting cheeky—but good luck to him! I have been in a very generous mood this week. I have said nice things about the honourable member’s former boss, the member for Higgins. I have given what I think is fair account of his record—I do not expect the honourable member to agree—which is that there are some things that he does deserve recognition for. Those things include the engagement and development of the G20, particularly the engagement during the Asian financial crisis with Indonesia and other Asian nations which were buffeted by that crisis, and the support given by Australia. I think that is worthy of recognition.

The development of APRA and ASIC is something which obviously happened on the Treasurer’s watch, although it took a couple of goes after HIH. Australia’s prudential regulation system has stood Australia in good stead. The former Treasurer’s reform record, given the commodity boom which he presided over and the great times for Australia which arose out of that commodity boom, means that he is not able to be regarded as one of Australia’s great reforming Treasurers, because the reform that he could have engaged in during that period was not undertaken. I have said that he was perhaps the luckiest Treasurer in Australian history, because he presided over the period of the commodity boom and a period of the greatest increase in Australia’s national income since the Korean War as a result of international movements—most particularly the development of China. I do not think even the honourable member for Casey would claim that the honourable member for Higgins engineered the development of China—perhaps he will have a go at claiming that, but perhaps he will not!

The reform program by the member for Higgins was a bit light on, but I acknowledge his role in developing the GST. I have read the honourable member for Higgins’ book. It is a good book. The member for Casey gets a guernsey with some favourable mentions, and so he should. The member for Higgins makes the point that in developing the GST he needed to be across the detail of the GST and that it was a hard reform, all things that I accept, having been involved in this government’s reform program; these measures are never easy. The honourable member for Higgins carried out the reform program competently.

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