Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Deputy Speaker. His economic policy is less 'back to basics' now. It's more 'back to bolsheviks'! The Soviets would be proud of this; they'd really love it. Stalin had a five-year plan; the shadow Treasurer now has a 15-year plan. Brezhnev built three nuclear power plants in 20 years; the Liberals want to build seven in 10 years. This is about national ambition. The Soviets weren't ambitious enough! They didn't have the vision that the Liberals have.

Let's do a quick check on principle No. 2: energy policy must be competitively neutral. That's what we heard from the shadow Treasurer. It was all about back to basics, not picking winners. Well, again, this principle really hit the fence last week. It hit the fence when it was jumped by the mother of all captain's picks in energy policy: nuclear power for all. The shadow Treasurer, the week before, was saying that energy infrastructure has to be commercial—'We don't want to subsidise the private sector.' His leader says, 'No. Let's put it on the government credit card.' Rolled again, unfortunately, and back-to-basics principle No. 2 disappears.

Back-to-basics principle No. 3 is deregulation. This one is my favourite. The shadow Treasurer is very passionate about this. He doesn't want the dead hand of government getting involved in business. He doesn't want government telling businesses what to do. They should be out there employing people, driving economic growth. That's what he needs businesses to do. That's why important back-to-basics principle No. 3 is deregulation. Unfortunately, his leader had other ideas, again. When it comes to grocery prices, his leader has put forward the most statist, socialist, big-government, interventionist policy you could imagine! This policy made the Greens blush. It was so socialist the Greens had second thoughts. He doesn't just want to regulate; he wants to split them up. (Time expired)

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