Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is an interesting concept that now we are being asked to believe that the Liberal Party is in favour of untrammelled free markets and is against regulation of any sort. I presume that involves the Liberal Party only because on the economics committee the National Party, in the form of Senator Joyce, has been strenuously arguing for more regulation in the consumer sector in any case.

What I quoted is what was said by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister wrote that this philosophy, in line with the Thatcher-Howard era, is anti tax, anti regulation and anti government intervention. Now I think we see very clearly, in what is happening in the world financial and economic markets, that this is a policy that was indeed doomed to failure. The Prime Minister indeed did say during the last election that he was an economic conservative, and I think those on the other side need it spelt out for them very clearly what this means. It means he believes in maintaining a budget surplus over the economic cycle and is committed to removing trade barriers and realising our free trade objectives. Indeed, this is also a platform policy position of our party and has long been so. What it does not mean, has never meant and never will mean, as far as the Labor Party is concerned, is that we would sit on our hands while the unemployment queues grow and Australians lose their homes, assets and savings, watching idly because we believe that the market will sort it out. I am absolutely bewildered as to what those opposite attribute the global financial crisis to if greed and unregulated financial markets are not a part of that. We then ask ourselves, given what the Liberal Party is now saying, ‘What would the Liberal Party have done in response to the global financial crisis?’