Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It seems like only yesterday that I was standing on the South Brighton tennis court of Liberal stalwarts Eric and Lilias Isaachsen with a group of hardworking supporters celebrating taking the federal seat of Kingston off the Labor Party; but it was December 1975—a generation ago. It is said that if you are not a socialist at the age of 20 you do not have a heart, but if you are still a socialist by the age of 30 you do not have a head. Obviously I am a very heartless person, because I have always been a convinced Liberal. I certainly fought a few battles on that front at Adelaide University on the SRC and the university union in the late 1960s.

In my maiden speech in the Senate—I reject the political correctness which now describes them as ‘first speeches’—on 21 October 1987, I outlined my commitment to liberalism, both by philosophical inclination and by party identification as derived from the traditional English Liberals, such as Hume, Burke and Adam Smith, rather than the so-called European liberals. Spontaneity and the absence of coercion are the hallmarks of this Liberal philosophy—a commitment to limiting government interference in the lives of individuals—especially their economic lives. Liberal parliamentarians must not succumb to the temptation when in office to override these basic Liberal principles, even for the best of motives. In my maiden speech and throughout my political career I have argued for the application of that philosophy through a more market oriented, productivity based industrial relations system as a key necessary reform. If proof were needed, the superiority of a Liberal economic and social system was strongly demonstrated by the collapse of communism and its centrally planned economies. In Australia, it was exemplified by the successes of the Howard government—the best federal government in Australia’s history—especially in the case of its labour market reforms, which I first advocated in 1980, albeit unheeded by the Fraser government. Undoubtedly, the Howard government’s workplace relations reforms laid the foundations for Australia’s economic success during the last decade, creating more jobs and higher real wages. It is sad that the misleading scare campaign of the trade unions diminished community support for those essential reforms.

Similarly, in my earlier House of Representatives maiden speech on 4 March 1976, I applied the Liberal philosophy to the motor vehicle industry policy. I argued that, as a first stage of reform, the Fraser government should implement an 85 per cent local content plan, as advocated by Chrysler—which was then manufacturing in the Kingston electorate—rather than the more protectionist 95 per cent plan. The motor vehicle industry represents one of the greatest transformations in Australia during my more than three decades in politics. To go from high import tariffs, import quotas and high local content plans in the mid-1970s to 10 per cent tariffs and some taxpayer support for industry competitiveness today is a remarkable change, and it was supported by both the Howard and the Hawke-Keating governments. From cars which no-one really wanted to buy—I remember having an HQ Holden company car in the early 1970s, and I remember how hard it was to even keep it on the road, even at reasonable country driving speeds—