Mr BEAZLEY (Leader of the Opposition)(4.01 p.m.) —There are a couple of points that I think we can make at the outset here, and that is what has been evident over the last three months where we have had an opportunity to judge the administrative competence of this government, the goals that it sets itself, its actual achievement in terms of management of the economy, its ability to protect people in their retirement and to provide educational opportunities, access to decent health care, job security and a general feeling of security of life within the community. In meeting their obligation to ensure that in each of these areas people's sense of security and achievement is enhanced, we are dealing with a very ordinary government indeed.

I know the Prime Minister (Mr Howard) likes to make a virtue of the fact that he is not exciting, but that does not mean he ought to make a virtue of the fact that he is not contributing to anything other than a sense of insecurity he sought to exploit when he came into office and which he has done nothing to address.

It is no surprise that, after 13 years in office, we should find that the public is not necessarily going to spend a great deal of time, for a period of time, taking much notice of us. So the fact that the odd public opinion poll might reflect that is a bit neither here nor there. But what is interesting, when a Prime Minister comes into office and says he wants to make people feel relaxed and comfortable—and that is the leitmotiv of his government—is to find after 12 months that respondents are saying they feel a higher level of insecurity. That, indeed, is a commentary.

There is now a higher level of insecurity, despite the fact that the economy inherited by this Prime Minister was one that he described as being better than good in parts, despite the fact that we had substantial growth in employment going on in the economy, despite the fact that we were improving private savings in this nation through the provision of a superannuation scheme that was giving people substantial opportunities, despite the fact that we had universal health care, despite the fact that there was a growing participation rate at all levels of the education system, with young people having a real opportunity to get into education processes and ultimately into jobs and despite the fact that we held our heads high in the region around us. That was the position this Prime Minister inherited. And on each one of these critical elements of life in this nation and of the development of public policy he has failed tests that the community would set him and, indeed, tests that we would have expected him to have set himself.

What an extraordinary thing it is that a year after a government has been in office—and here we go to the question of standards; recollect that standards were one of the matters on which he wanted to be judged because he was somehow going to lift public standards—we find there is no ministerial code of conduct. We have had ministers resigning but there is no ministerial code. In the Public Service there is a routine developing as far as the ministry is concerned. Be it Minister Vanstone or Minister Kemp, whenever a problem is created it is either a case of `The dog ate my homework' or `A public servant did.'

What an extraordinary thing it is that the Australian Financial Review, a paper which could be expected to be sympathetic to this government in all its aspects, comes out and says this:

As one of his core election promises, Mr John Howard pledged to restore trust and honesty in government. To fulfil this tattered ethical vow, he must ensure that a much more thorough investigation of Senator Mal Colston's unjustified misuse of parliamentary perks than has been presented so far to the Australian people.

But the interesting comment in that—and we found plenty of interest in it—is `to fulfil this tattered ethical vow'. That is their view after the Bob Woods affair and after the Prime Minister's appearance on the Ray Martin show. That is their view after Senate Vanstone's regular appearances before Senate committees to explain herself. That is their view after the sorts of revelations we have had about Minister Kemp's achievements in his portfolio in administering those labour market programs that they signed up to. That is their view after the Treasurer (Mr Costello) stood up in this place and claimed that a promise that he made to protect the savings of our retiring people is a promise we made and he did not, ignoring the promise that he made. That is their view of this government, a government that has exhibited, as far as ethics are concerned, all the manifestations of a tattered ethical vow.

Well might they say that about Senator Colston. I do not want to dwell on that figure at any length in this place. Senator Colston will find himself with a more than an interesting enough next six weeks without anything that I can add to it. The Australian Financial Review had this to say about that very brief answer the Prime Minister gave yesterday, saying:

Mr Howard yesterday denied this—

`this' referring to something the Prime Minister personally intervened on: an approved wage rise for the particular staff member who did, according to Senator Colston, eat his homework—

amounted to any `inducement' for Senator Colston's vote. Yet, the timing of this pay rise—just before Senator Colston's vote allowed the Government's Telstra bill to pass the Senate—suggests otherwise as long as the Government continues to resist a genuine investigation into the senator's affairs.

So it is a tawdry, ordinary government producing tawdry, ordinary policies that are obtaining the contempt of their colleagues in the states and in the community generally—those sections that looked to them with great expectation when they came into office.

Jeff Kennett's speech yesterday on industry policy was absolutely priceless. It was a ringing endorsement of the industry policies that we had and have subsequently put out. In fact, I am going to stick it into Mark Latham's particular box on the subject of plagiarism so Jeff does not get off this exercise scot-free. Nevertheless, Jeff has had a few things to say about the performance of this government on industry policy. He said:

Australia without an industry policy will be a country without friends or refuge in an increasingly competitive and clever world.

In the last year we have seen some policy decisions made by the Federal Government which have been more damaging to industry than probably realised at the time of their announcement.

For example, the decision to reduce support for research and development and the increase in HECS fees for science and engineering courses have contributed to an impression that the Commonwealth Government does not value R&D.

The scrapping of DIFF took away a key diplomatic and industry development strategy.

The proposal to shutdown Radio Australia seems to have been put forward without consideration of the goodwill the service generates for Australia in the Asia-Pacific.

Similarly, the current consideration of future arrangements for the pharmaceutical industry is worrying as I fear the industry's issues are being blurred with health policy issues.

Our objective—

this is what he says about himself—

therefore, is to establish the framework and directions for a national co-ordinated policy based on sustaining high rates of economic growth. Governments must work together in a co-ordinated way to develop this new industry policy.

I do not actually think that Jeff yet thinks that he is Prime Minister of this nation. He obviously has the Prime Minister in mind as to where he might end up. Either that or he speaks with the royal `we', but he cannot speak with the royal `we' as far as the nation is concerned. He is not there yet. But that is what comes of lifting industry policy holus-bolus out of the Labor Party's platform.

Nevertheless, the point is made, and the point ought to be taken, that there is no industry policy being operated by this government. You can smarm and slip and slide your way around it, but there are consequences.

You will recollect the situation that I referred to that they inherited when they came into office. Contrast that with what we did: 11 per cent unemployment, a $25 billion budget deficit, an inflation rate of 11 per cent. That is what we walked into. It took 13 years for this nation to develop amnesia about John Howard. If a week is a long time in politics, think about 13 years—13 years to develop that amnesia about the John Howard record back then in 1983.

But hasn't it all come to pass for them again. And those mournful statistics are coming through yet again. `Judge us on 12 months,' he told the member for Batman (Mr Martin Ferguson) at the beginning of the year. `Don't ask me any more questions about unemployment. Judge us on 12 months.'

Here is the 12-month record. In the last Labor year in office total employment grew 176,000; in the first Howard year in office total employment grew 89,000. In the last Labor year in office total full-time employment grew 112,000; in the first year of Howard in office employment grew 6,000. Male full-time employment—these are the blue-collar battlers that John Howard is aiming at—in our last year in office grew 57,000; John Howard's first year in office, minus 12,600. Number of unemployed: in our last year in office, down 26,000; John Howard's first year, up 44,000. Long-term unemployed—and remember that it is always the long-term unemployed who are in the position of the most tragedy—in our last year in office, down 45,000; in John Howard's first year in office, up 44,000. The teenage unemployment rate in our last year of office fell from 27.7 per cent to 26.8 per cent; in their first year in office it was back up to 28 per cent. That is the record on which John Howard wanted himself judged. When the Prime Minister came into office he invited us to judge him upon that basis.

But there are many things we can judge him on as well. We have had occasion to make remarks about his personal promises and that of his government on the position of our people in retirement in the years to come: savings of the nation, and retirement benefits for our people, and that superannuation scheme that we put in place subjected to the most fiendish vandalism since this government has been in office.

But there will be a test for them when this next budget comes round. They acknowledge—and the public knows—that they have just whacked $100,000 off the retirement package of somebody on average weekly earnings. So, when these tawdry little so-called savings vehicles get trotted out in the paltry little manner with which they will be trotted out when that budget comes down, what the public needs to remember—and we will be giving them the question over the next six weeks—is that they paid for it with $100,000 on the day they retired.

They have to think about whether or not they think it is worth it to get a little savings vehicle to pay for education which currently they receive free but which it is foreshadowed by the National Commission of Audit they will be paying for as the years go by. They will have to think about whether losing 100 grand on their date of retirement was worth that—whether they will feel more relaxed and comfortable and more secure about it when they do.

Then they can contemplate too what has happened to the universal health care system. It is being sliced away, one slice of the salami as each year goes by, so that more and more people receive this sort of correspondence from their doctors as was received by one constituent who wrote into us:

Dear Patient,

As from the 20th February 1997 we will not be accepting Medicare cheques as full payment of any accounts. Pension and Health Care Card holders will now be charged the schedule fee which will mean out of pocket gaps for each item number used. If you wish to know the exact amounts please enquire at reception.

That will be a story that is going to be told in doctor's surgery after doctor's surgery around this nation for pensioners and for everybody else in that Medicare system, as this government slices the salami and removes the public from that universal health care system that they had.

Finally we come, as the Prime Minister is about to go away, to the care and maintenance of our standing and reputation overseas. He goes overseas to kowtow. That is the position of the Prime Minister. He is obliged to kowtow for this reason and this reason only—having so dishonoured us in our relationship with the Chinese by his cancellation of the DIFF program and by his stupid performance in overstating our relationship with the United States, he now finds himself in this position where he has to cancel meetings with people like the Dalai Lama and the Taiwanese because he will create more of a crisis than he has already created himself. Things that could once be done in a canter by the deputy leader on visits to the Chinese can no longer be done.

On every front this nation has lost standing. People have lost standing within it and access to decent public policy; people have lost access to decent ministerial administration and national dignity. An ordinary performance indeed, Mr Prime Minister, in your first 12 months. Nothing we see of you at this point of time suggests for one minute that it is going to get any better. (Time expired)