Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

It is the responsibility of the Reserve Bank to ensure that inflation remains under control. We know that if the Labor Party ever gets into government we will see inflation get out of control once more. The recentralisation of wage fixing would be devastating to inflation in this country. It would ensure that, if there was a wages increase in the resources area, it would flow right through the economy, as it did under the former Labor government, threatening every Australian family in the way that it did when Mr Beazley was the Minister for Finance of this country. His budget was out of control and interest rates were out of control. We do not want to see a return to that and we will ensure that inflation and interest rates remain at the record lows that they have been under our government.