Rudd demeans himself over history

They were financial deregulation, fundamental taxation reform, dismantling of high tariff protection, privatisation of government-owned commercial bodies and a freer labour market.

The blueprint for financial reform came from the Campbell inquiry, set up by me, as treasurer. The reform process here started with the Fraser government, through the introduction of a tender system for the sale of Treasury notes and Treasury bonds, described by the former Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane, in his 2006 Boyer lectures, as "second only in importance to the float of the Australian dollar in 1983".

The Fraser government also began the politically difficult task of deregulating interest rates, by removing all interest-rate ceilings on bank deposits.

Reversing Labor's pre-1983 opposition to financial deregulation, the Hawke government floated the dollar, admitted foreign banks and otherwise broadly implemented Campbell's recommendations. The float of the dollar was driven by Bob Hawke as prime minister and the then governor of the Reserve Bank, Bob Johnston. Treasury, at that time, opposed the float.

After a number of false starts fundamental taxation reform, involving as it had to the introduction of a broad based goods and services tax, was finally achieved by the Howard government in 2000.

The Hawke government, with Paul Keating as treasurer, was responsible for largely dismantling Australia's system of protective tariffs. The Keating government privatised Qantas and commenced the privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank. The Howard government privatised Telstra.

In the early 1990s the Keating government introduced a limited form of enterprise bargaining. I say limited because under these changes an enterprise agreement concluded between an employer and its non-union workforce still had to run the gauntlet of the Industrial Relations Commission, where any union having coverage in the relevant workforce area could oppose the agreement, even if none of its members were parties to the agreement.

The legislation giving effect to this change also introduced the unfair dismissal law, constantly criticised by small businesses in Australia.

The Howard government greatly expanded deregulation of the labour market; first through the introduction of Australian Workplace Agreements in 1996, and in 2005 with the removal of unfair dismissal entitlements affecting firms employing fewer than 100 people and the streamlining of the agreement making process.

Importantly, in 1996 it restored Sections 45D and E to the Trade Practices Act. These provided protection to businesses against predatory secondary-boycott union behaviour.

The Rudd government has not only overturned the Howard government's industrial relations changes (excepting the restoration of Sections 45D and E), but has also imposed a further level of regulation, taking our workplace relations system back to the late 1980s.

The other highly relevant fact, in this almost 30-year reform process, was the different responses of the two sides of politics when they were in opposition.

The Liberal and National parties supported the reforms initiated by the Hawke and Keating governments.

When the dollar was floated, I, as opposition treasury spokesman, described that decision as "correct and courageous". The then opposition strongly supported the Hawke government's tariff reduction program.

As prime minister I would, from time to time, praise what the Hawke government had done with financial deregulation and tariff reform.

Privatisation of Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank became Coalition policy in the mid 1980s, and, as both Keating and Kim Beazley will know, the legislation privatising the bank would not have passed through the Senate in 1995 without Coalition support.

By contrast the Labor Party, in opposition, fought tooth and nail against the reform attempts of the Coalition. Kevin Rudd called the introduction of the GST a "day of fundamental injustice".

Having promoted the privatisation of Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank in government, Labor in opposition consistently opposed the privatisation of Telstra, which was not finally achieved until after the Coalition won control of the Senate following the 2004 election.

Predictably, Labor opposed all of the Coalition's industrial relations changes.

Labor negativity in opposition was not confined to the five major reforms I have cited. It also tried to thwart the fiscal consolidation process, commenced in Peter Costello's first budget in 1996.

That budget, the best and most courageous in a generation, imposed real reductions in government spending. Opportunistically, Labor opposed most of these measures.

That fiscal consolidation process, which totally eliminated net Commonwealth debt and produced a string of budget surpluses, has proved critical to Australia escaping the worst effects of the global financial plunge.

Surely not even Rudd will dispute that he inherited from the former government a fiscal position and a framework for prudential regulation of the banking system second to none in the western world.

It is tempting for a political leader such as Rudd to highlight his party's virtues and ignore those of other parties. Last Monday, however, the Prime Minister carried political mendacity to new heights, when he launched Paul Kelly's book The March of Patriots.

His analysis of the economic reform process in Australia since 1980 was partisan, inaccurate and lacked any semblance of objectivity.

In one fashion or another we are all political warriors, but we have a superior obligation to the national interest. That obligation obtains in opposition as well as in government.

No side of Australian politics has a monopoly of either virtue or merit. Each according to its own value system has attempted to improve the lot of Australians.

In failing to acknowledge this last Monday, my successor diminished himself, and not the Liberal and National Parties.

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