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

You never hear them talking about the global financial crisis. You never hear them having any sympathy or empathy for Australian families who would have had no job and would have been confined to long-term unemployment. You never hear them talk about the industries that would have gone under if the government had not put its fiscal stimulus package in place. You do not hear any of this. They do not have any idea about what a government should do when faced with a global financial crisis. They keep coming up with the same arguments, yet they do not understand how the financial bubbles created this economic crisis. They really do stick to the old adage that greed is good. That is where they come from. They think greed is good. They do not really care about working families. That has clearly been their position over the years.

The budget strategy that the Labor government put in place was dealing with debt in an appropriate way—a timely, targeted and temporary way. We have debt levels that are dramatically lower than in any other advanced country in the world. We have a deficit that is lower than in any other advanced country in the world. All your fear campaigns will be addressed. We will confront your fear campaigns, because the days of you running fear campaigns and getting away with it are over. You have no other strategy than fear. That is the approach you take. The coalition are the economic fundamentalists who are running fear campaigns and are the wreckers of the economy. That is really the position you are in.

It is Labor that will build a strong economy and a good society. It is Labor that cares about working families. You see, we understand that, if government does not step in when the private sector steps out of investment, it is ordinary workers in this country that suffer. It is workers that are made redundant. You see, I actually know what it is like to be made redundant. I have been made redundant as a fitter working in ordinary business. I do not think there are too many on the other side that would know what it is like to come home and tell your family that you have been made redundant and that you have no job, no income and very little chance of getting a job. I do know what that is like. I have been there. You do not know what it is like, because clearly your economic policies would make it worse for ordinary Australians. When you end up in a recession and you have families being wrecked by this laissez-faire economic policy of the coalition, you do not think about the jobs that are lost and the impact that that has on ordinary Australians.

You come here and lecture us about small business. Let me tell you: we are the ones that want to cut tax for small business. We are the ones that want to increase the wealth of ordinary Australians by increasing superannuation. We are the ones that want to increase infrastructure in this country, and you have no plan and no strategy for that. All you want to do is have your mates in the mining industry continue to operate as billionaires and not pay their fair share of taxes. That is not what we are about. We are about making sure that Australians get their fair share, that we have a strong economy and that we have a fair society in this country. That is the difference between Labor and the coalition.