TRANSCRIPT

THE HON PETER COSTELLO MP

TREASURER

Official Opening of The Hon Trish Worth’s

Prospect, Adelaide

Friday, 3 September 2004

11.15 am

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour for me to be launching the

campaign of someone who I admire very much and someone who I believe has

been the most outstanding Member for Adelaide, Trish Worth.

Trish came into the Parliament in 1993. She has made an incredible contribution.

She has been the Parliamentary Secretary in relation to health. She understands

health policy. She has been a nurse, I think you have been a midwife, and

she is one of those people who just has the most practical understanding

of health policy, how it affects people and she is making a wonderful contribution

as a Parliamentary Secretary and that goes with the wonderful contribution

she makes as the Member for Adelaide.

And it is always a great pleasure to be here. This is a seat which is on

a margin of 0.6 per cent, so it will swing on a couple of hundred votes.

This is the kind of seat which will determine whether or not the Coalition

Government is re-elected or whether or not Mark Latham becomes Prime Minister

and Simon Crean the Treasurer of Australia. If that puts a chill in your

soul, that is why I said it – it should put a chill in your soul.

I think if you look back over the last 8 ½ years, you can see that we have

made some good progress. Eight and a half years ago interest rates were

10 ½ per cent. Eight and a half years ago we had 1.3 million less jobs than

we currently have. Eight and a half years ago our budget was deep in deficit.

But over the last eight and a half years this Government has balanced the

books, we have re-paid $70 billion of Labor Party debt, we have got inflation

low, we have brought interest rates down to a 7 per cent average compared

to 12 ¾ per cent under the Labor Party over the 13 years of the Hawke-Keating

Government and we have survived a lot of shocks – the Asian financial crisis,

the US recession, the worst drought in a hundred years, the September the

11^th attacks, war in Iraq and alone amongst the major economies

of the world, Australia has continued to grow and create job opportunities.

Now I want to let you into a secret. Running economic policy is a little

bit harder than signing pieces of cardboard. Yesterday Mr Latham said all

he had to do to convince the Australian public of his economic policy was

to sign a piece of cardboard. And according to Mr Latham, once he had signed

that piece of cardboard, that proved he could be trusted with interest rates.

Now I have been running economic management for the last 8 ½ years, and

it never occurred to me that all I had to do was sign a piece of cardboard.

I actually thought that running economic policy means sitting down and doing

Budgets, balancing the books, reforming the taxation system, improving industrial

relations, ensuring we had good monetary policy, making sure that we kept

inflation, that is what I thought economic management was, oh how silly

I was, all you had to do was sign a piece of cardboard.

And I wonder what else he is going to do today, maybe he will sign a piece

of cardboard abolishing unemployment forever, or sign a piece of cardboard

declaring that there will never be another drought, or sign a piece of cardboard

declaring that nobody, no business will even become unprofitable.

If you think economic management is about signing pieces of cardboard,

then you understand about as much of economics as Mark Latham understands,

and that is not very much. What you need, is you need disciplined, consistent

policy.

People’s mortgages depend on economic management. People’s jobs depend

on economic management. People’s businesses depend on economic management.

And in troubled times, it is important that you have people who are consistent

and disciplined.

Now we are finding out a bit more about Mr Latham’s policies at the moment.

I have often said, because I have studied his policy, I know more about

his policy than he does. And at the beginning of this campaign, he was apparently

unaware that one of his policies is for a new national payroll tax of 0.1

per cent. It is there in his published policy, I have referred to it in

the House of Representatives over and over and over again and I was surprised

he didn’t know it.

But we are finding out more details about this all the time. It now appears

because Mr Latham was on South Australian radio today, that his new national

payroll tax applies to non-profit organisations and could well apply to

charities as well. He was asked by the Scout Association on South Australian

radio today, whether or not this new payroll tax will apply to the Scout

Association. He didn’t know the details. He didn’t know the details. But

he said: ‘it is just an increase in the superannuation levy.’ Let me tell

you, the superannuation levy applies to the Scout Association. So if it

is an increase in the superannuation levy, it would apply to the Scout Association.

Let me tell you, there is no carve out in his policy for non-profit, for

charitable organisations. And as the representative of the Scout Association

said, increases like this could knock us over the edge.

And the problem with Mr Latham is that he doesn’t know his own policy.

Could you have somebody try and run and economy or a country who didn’t

even know their own policy, let alone the right policies that are important

to put in place?

And over the course of this campaign as more and more detail comes out,

you are going to realise more and more, the risk of putting somebody in

control of the Australian economy who doesn’t have the experience, who doesn’t

have the discipline, who doesn’t have the purpose.

People’s businesses and people’s mortgage and people’s jobs depend on good

economic management and that is why we have got to get it right.

We have got to get it right at the national level and we have got to get

it right at the local level.

Trish is one of those people who gets things right. She is one of those

people who engenders trust and confidence from her constituents. She is

one of those people that is available, that is open, that is there to help

her constituents. She is one of those people who makes a wonderful contribution

in the Federal Parliament. She is one of those people that deserves to be

re-elected.

She is one of those people who can represent the electors of Adelaide to

the full and utmost of her ability and that is why I am here today to stand

with her, to support her campaign and declare Trish Worth, the candidate,

the Member for Adelaide, campaign office open. Thank you very much.