Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It always amazes me when I stay in this chamber and listen to people like Senator Sherry from the Labor Party talking about interest rates. When Senator Sherry in 1989 was probably looking after his friends in the liquor and hospitality union, I was paying 24 per cent interest rates under a Labor government. And Senator Sherry has the hide to come into this place and complain about interest rates that are a shade over seven per cent.

Senator Sherry talks about the increase in food prices. He obviously leads such a sheltered life that he does not realise that we are experiencing the worst drought in 100 years. What does he expect would happen to food prices with the demand that is currently placed on the few sources of food that are still available? Do you expect food prices to stay at the same level in the middle of the worst drought that we have had in 100 years? That is how much of a sheltered life Senator Sherry has led. Maybe he has only just started going to the supermarket; I do not know. But I can tell you that we have not seen the worst of food prices going up because the drought, and the effect that that is having across the whole of Australia, is going to ensure that food prices are going to go up. There is simply nothing we can do about that. What does Senator Sherry expect the government to do—make it rain? That is the only way we can make sure that food prices in supermarkets come down to a reasonable level; that is when we get a greater supply.

Senator Sherry wants to get a few facts on that table, and seeing that he would not put them there I think I should. Under the Howard government inflation has averaged 2.6 per cent. Under Labor it averaged 5.2 per cent, exactly twice as much. And to keep inflation low and interest rates low we have made substantial reforms to the economy, every one of them opposed by Labor. Every one of those reforms to make our economy more efficient and more productive, Labor has opposed. Keeping the economy strong, getting unemployment under five per cent, keeping inflation in check and reducing interest rates from the 1996 levels that we inherited when we came in office have required very careful economic management. And if Senator Sherry is not prepared to acknowledge that it has been careful eco-nomic management that has kept inflation in check and interest rates at a low level then he is not very interested in what took place prior to 1996.

The Labor Party have no alternative economic plan. At the last election, what did they have? A piece of cardboard signed by Mark Latham. That was their economic plan. That is what they were going to put before the Australian people, and that was going to save Australia and keep our economy in good shape. In 2006, what have they got now? Billboards this time; no coherent economic policy at all, but billboards. That is their policy. No-one denies that we are facing serious economic challenges. We have got the worst drought in 100 years, we have still got almost the highest world oil prices in history and domestic inflation has been affected by the cyclone in Queensland.