Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

One really would have to be forgiven when listening to the government speakers in this debate for thinking that the Labor Party were actually the government of this country, because their only contribution to the debate about interest rates that we have heard so far has been harking back to what happened in very different economic circumstances, very different global circumstances, in previous governments. I will talk a bit about that in a moment.

Senator Joyce actually went back to the Labor government before that; he talked about the Whitlam government—as if what happened some 30 years ago has any relevance in today’s global economy, with the very complicated and complex global environment in which we live. It is no excuse for this government to talk about interest rates as if you can automatically compare what happens today to what happened in very different economic circumstances some time ago. I think it is an absolute cop-out for them.

What the government really need to do if we are going to get serious about having this debate in this country is face up to the fact that they are in government. I think the government actually like Senator Joyce to talk about them having their hand on the tiller or having their hand on the levers of the economy. He has now given us a new phrase about having their hands on the reins. If they have their hands on the reins of this economy, you would want to have a good look at that horse and maybe take it to the vet, because we are starting to see a very serious problem with eight successive interest rate increases, four since the last election. This government wants to continue to remain in denial about the impact that these changes to the economy are actually having and why they are actually taking place.

Senator Minchin, to his credit, actually tries to answer questions fulsomely. The trouble is that he is now being hung by his own words from previous occasions. The standards that he wanted to apply in different economic circumstances and the quotes and statements about the measures of the economy that he used once now seem to have gone out the window. He seems to be able to use the government’s spin—and I can understand that that is politics—about interest rates and how low they are without actually acknowledging where they are going to go and how they affect people. Again it is a feature of this government that in nearly every instance when things are going well they are totally responsible and take complete credit for everything that goes well, but as soon as things are not going particularly well then of course it is everyone else’s fault—it is either the states’ fault, the global economy’s fault or the previous Labor government’s fault. It is the fault of the Labor governments of 10 or in some cases 30 years ago that there are problems with the economy today! It is quite a bizarre approach. What did Senator Minchin tell us? He said that the reason for the interest rate rise now is the world economy. He talked about global demand.