Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the finding of the Prime Minister’s pollster that there is significant disillusionment with the Liberals on the issue of broken promises and dishonesty. Does the Prime Minister now regret breaking his promises to keep interest rates at record lows, to protect workers’ entitlements and to keep Australian troops in Iraq for months, not years, or were there other specific broken promises Mr Textor was referring to?

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just pick up the reference made to interest rates. What I promised, and what I repeat here today in front of this dispatch box, was that in Australia interest rates will always be lower under a coalition government than under a Labor government. It ought to be reinforced by the fact that the Labor Party has policies—namely, a return to a centralised wage-fixing system—that guarantee that there will be more upward pressure on interest rates under a Labor government than under this government. I would remind the member for Ballarat that, throughout the debate in 2004, that was the principal forward argument that I put in advance of the argument that interest rates would always be lower under us than under Labor.

I pointed to Labor’s record in government. They do not like this, but my argument about interest rates—and I am very happy you asked me this question—is based on: Labor’s performance when last in federal government, when interest rates hit 17 per cent for housing; their behaviour at a state government level; the fact that the government was left with a very large amount of debt in 1996; and a comparison of our industrial relations policy with that of the Labor Party. Those who sit opposite want to go back to the days of a centralised wage-fixing policy—where, if you paid a big wage increase over here, it flowed through to the rest of the economy, it put upward pressure on wages everywhere and therefore upward pressure on inflation and, thereby, interest rates. We have broken that connection. The only thing that threatens to reconnect those two things is the election of a Labor government.

I am fascinated that the opposition should ask me about people who do focus group work, because I am reminded of something that somebody said about those who advise the Leader of the Opposition about the attitudes of the Australian public. I do not normally draw on this source, but I will make an exception on this occasion because the comment was so good.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we see the Leader of the Opposition’s back again. Of course, I am referring to the description given by my immediate predecessor in the office I now hold, former Labor Prime Minister Mr Paul Keating, when he spoke of those who advise the Leader of the Opposition. He had a lot of things to say about them, but the best of all is this:

The Labor Party is not going to profit from having these proven unsuccessful people around who are frightened of their own shadow and won’t get out of bed in the morning unless they’ve had a focus group report to tell them which side of bed to get out.

If ever that description fitted anyone, it fits the shadow Treasurer, the honourable member for Lilley. They do not eat a morsel of food without getting a focus group report first. They are the most poll-driven group. They talk about Crosby Textor; Hawker Britton would leave them for dead.