Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to participate in this debate. I find it absolutely ludicrous that the other side would be putting a proposition that the Rudd government is engaging in poor economic management and that the budget will cripple Australia’s economic future for this generation and beyond. That is an absolute nonsense. It is not based on reality. I think this demonstrates how far out of touch the opposition are in terms of the global financial crisis that is facing this country. We are in the deepest global recession since the Great Depression and what do we have from the opposition? We have an ideological position that continues to say that government should not intervene in the economy in the interests of ordinary workers, in the interests of communities and in the interests of this nation; that the market will fix the problems; that you should not go into debt to save jobs in this country; that you should allow the building workers of this country to lose their jobs; that you should allow manufacturing workers to lose their jobs; and that you should allow communities to lose breadwinners in households throughout those communities. That is the philosophy that the Liberal Party and the coalition are pushing here. The days of Hayek, the days of Thatcher and the days of Reagan are over. Those days have led to a situation of greed and incompetence dominating the international economy. That is why governments around the world have said that we must intervene in the interests of our societies and make sure the market serves society and that society is not the servant of markets.

The problem we have with the coalition is that they cannot move away from the proposition that we should simply let the market rip. What do you see when you let the market rip? You see this great recession, you see a failure of the financial system and you see ordinary families unable to pay their debts, put food on the table and meet the commitments that they have into the future. Yet the coalition simply want to argue that we should wait and see what happens. One minute they are going to have debt of $25 billion less than Labor; the next minute that is off the table. What is happening with the conservative parties in this country? Where are you going in terms of the great argument that was put up about your economic competence? Since I have been here I have seen nothing but economic incompetence from the conservative forces in this country. You cling to the past. You think that the market can solve all the problems and you are prepared to let ordinary working families lose their jobs, lose their incomes and lose their dignity on the altar of your dogma and your ideology.

The Labor Party are not prepared to sacrifice one job that does not need to be sacrificed in this country. If that means we have to take steps to intervene in the economy then we will. The steps that we are taking will underpin 210,000 jobs in this economy. No country that is taking progressive economic steps to deal with the financial crisis is engaging in the debate that we are hearing from the coalition. No country is saying that you should not go into debt to try to protect jobs and protect communities. No country is as foolhardy and stupid enough to have the ideology that we hear from those on the other side. The Labor Party are determined to take the steps to protect our families in this great challenge.

It is so fortunate that the Labor Party is in government now, because if the Liberal Party and the coalition were in government now we would still be back on the same old merry-go-round that we had before, the merry-go-round where people simply say: ‘Let the money roll in; let us sit back, rock back and depend on the mining boom to give us our income and that income will do us. We will throw out tax cut after tax cut after tax cut and we will not invest in infrastructure, we will not invest in research and development and we will not invest in innovation. We will not do the things that are required to build the economy for the future.’ Instead of being an economically competent government, the Howard and Costello government were amongst the most economically incompetent. When you measure all of the key factors that drive a modern economy against the Howard-Costello legacy, you will see that you failed and you failed badly.

Debate interrupted.