Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to participate in this debate on taking note of answers. I note at the outset that a number of issues were canvassed during question time. I want to touch on a couple of them, but I begin with the issue of interest rates, which Senator Williams has just spoken about. I respect Senator Williams. I think he is a person with genuine concern for the rural constituency, but I have to say that the speech he has just made was one that could have been made—and, I am sure, was made—by members of the Labor Party in opposition in the last 12 months of the Howard government. Why do I say that? Let’s remember. The opposition sits here today and lectures us about interest rates because the Commonwealth Bank has just announced an increase in their mortgage rates, but it was under the Howard government that there were eight increases in interest rates in a row. The situation that we inherited when we came to office in November 2007 was a treadmill of interest rate rises; every couple of months they were going up again as a result of the decisions of the Reserve Bank being followed by the banks.

Those eight interest rises were the opposition’s legacy to us. There was even one during the election campaign—something that was unheard of—because it was clear that at that time the Reserve Bank saw no alternative but to raise interest rates again. We had to confront that reality in the first few months of our term of office. After the first few months that we were in office, interest rates declined. They have steadily throughout most of the period that we have been in government. To say that the Labor government is pushing up interest rates is completely incorrect. Senator Coonan asked this question initially, and I recall Senator Coonan interjecting, saying, ‘What are we doing about it? What are we doing about it?’ I find this argument from the opposition somewhat strange because, as was quoted by Senator Hurley, it is Senator McGauran who has the view—no doubt reflecting the view of the vast majority, if not all, of that Liberal Party—that the market should decide. In other words, government should stay out of trying to inject activity into the economy to deal with the global financial crisis. The Liberal Party view is that you do not need a stimulus package; you just let the market decide. But over in cockies corner the National Party has a different view, which is that government should hop in wherever it can to prop up their sector—which I acknowledge is doing it tough.

The other point I make is that throughout the period of the Howard-Costello government the current opposition constantly pointed to their economic record of removing debt and so on. What happened with private debt in this country? It exploded. It increased and increased as more and more people built up debt at high interest rates of 17 and 18 per cent on their MasterCards, Visa cards, Amex cards and all the other cards. That was the real debt that was incurred by the Australian people. While you can wax lyrical about government debt, the real debt that was crippling a lot of people in this country was on credit cards. That legacy remains. Then the opposition have the hide to criticise our economic stimulus package because some people might have used it to pay off part of their credit card. There are a lot of other issues. We had Senator Fisher raising award modernisation. Frankly, that is a joke. The record of the National Farmers Federation, which Senator Fisher worked for, as I recall, is one that opposed even superannuation for farm workers. They did not want farm workers to have access to superannuation. Fortunately, that was a fight that we won. On all of these issues and many more you are just— (Time expired)