Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is really quite a bizarre discussion we are having because, as many people have already mentioned, there is no policy position to increase the GST to 15 per cent. So it makes this all a little farcical. But what it does demonstrate is that on this side of the House we have the politics of ideas and we have the politics of discussion, and on the other side we have the politics of fear. That is what this is about. This is about the politics of ideas versus the politics of fear.

So, what are we talking about? With the politics of ideas we know that we need to have a strong, growing economy. We need jobs growth, we need people to employ people, we need people to be confident and we need, obviously, people to be out there spending—growing jobs and the economy in general. Obviously, as part of the whole discussion we are having, we also need to curtail debt levels. What is often said, and which is very true, is that we do not want to have intergenerational theft by leaving future generations with large debt levels.

On both sides of politics we often talk about the fact that we need to give our kids a good education and that we need to give our kids good health systems. But it is only on this side of politics that we talk about the fact that we do not want to burden our future generations and those same children with debt levels that are going to really harm them and their generation. Only this side of politics talks about that.

We obviously, in this whole discussion and this whole policy mix of trying to grow the economy and trying to have jobs growth, are not going to play a game of ruling things out or in straightaway. That just locks you into a corner and inhibits the whole discussion. But we obviously will take to an election policies that will promote jobs and growth, and obviously we then hopefully will have some more sensible MPIs that will be about fixed policy and planned positions.

The unfortunate thing about this is that this fear campaign not only belittles the Labor Party but belittles and is demeaning to the Australian public. I want to just remind the current Labor Party of some of their champions of the past who have been reformist and have been happy to have big picture conversations. Let's go back to the Hawke and Keating governments. If we had been in government then talking about those things, the current Labor opposition would have opposed everything that the Hawke-Keating governments did. If you were going to be talking about tariff reform, the current populist, fearmongering opposition would be running around saying, 'You can't lower tariffs, because that would lose Australian jobs.' The current Labor opposition would run a fear campaign against privatisation. Let's remember: it was the Labor governments of Hawke and Keating that privatised Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank. The current Labor opposition, if they had been in opposition then, would have run a fear campaign against that. It was the Hawke-Keating governments that brought in HECS, where a university student would pay for some of their degree. You can imagine the current Labor opposition running a complete fear campaign on that as well, because they are not about reform and the politics of ideas; they are about the politics of fear. As I said, it demeans not only the current Labor Party but the Australian public, because the Australian public want us to have the politics of ideas about growing our economy and growing jobs.

What are we doing on that? We are doing much on that. Not only are we having policy discussions but we have already—as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker—implemented four free trade agreements, which are going to grow our economy and have job growth associated with them. We have much infrastructure spending as well, especially in my electorate. The free trade agreements are helping agricultural producers in my electorate and, indeed, other small businesses that have niche markets, and the infrastructure spending on the Pacific Highway is certainly helping that as well.

We as a country do face challenges. We have revenue write-downs as prices for the commodities we export are falling. We have commitments that are locked in, like the NDIS and others, and we have to have the politics of ideas in here, not the politics of fear being run by the Labor Party.

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