Mr CAMPBELL(5.43 p.m.) —Listening to the predictable ideological diatribe from the member for Corangamite (Mr McArthur) is very depressing. This member went to great lengths to protect the greedy group of second rate marino stud breeders when we sought to stop the export of marino genetic material overseas. What he said does not equate with the facts at all.

What you have had under the policy of the former government—and there is no doubt about that—and the policy you continue to advocate is this mad ideological obsession with so-called economic rationalism. It is marvellous when it comes to promotion, but it is certainly not rational. It is not economic policy. It is political ideology of big business. If I were to say that this is a policy of mainly American big business to dominate world trade, people would look at me sideways. But I did not say it. Bob Santamaria said it and Bob Santamaria is absolutely right.

The truth is that we know that tariffs in isolation will not save jobs, but they do give you a breathing space. There are lots of other things governments can do, and governments have not done, that can stem them. If there is a will for these industries to survive, they will survive. But there is no will in government for this to happen. The member talks about the lowering of tariffs making these industries efficient. It certainly has made them more efficient, and now he wants to kill them.

I am reminded that that is exactly your position. Four years ago last August we closed down in Sydney the last company capable of making truck wheels. Truck wheels are very important for Australia. They are something for which we have a strategic need. They failed because Keating said to them: `If you cannot survive with a 15 per cent tariff, you deserve to die.' And die they did. Within weeks of that happening, of course, the price of Malaysian imports had gone through the roof. Blind Freddy could see that happening, but not the likes of the last member who spoke or the likes of the previous government.

Let us look at orange juice. We are told that we cannot do anything about it because of GATT. The Americans do, of course. The Americans levy a flat rate of duty on their orange juice at 80c a litre of concentrate. That puts in protection for their growers when prices are at their lowest. When prices are at their highest it is not very significant. In Australia we put on an ad valorem tax which gives growers some protection when prices are high and they do not need it but no protection when they are low and they desperately need it. How can you justify the logic of that?

It is not Brazilian farmers bringing orange juice into Australia; American big business is doing that. Once they have killed the market here, as they have tried to do with bananas and many other commodities, they will have the market to themselves. At the moment, Australia constitutes probably less than two per cent of their export market, but if they killed the market altogether we would become much more significant—six or seven per cent.

The Americans have said that early next century they will be self-sufficient in orange juice, that they will not be taking Brazilian orange juice. They will need that bigger market in Australia. They know that once they kill that industry it will not revive because of the lead time needed to grow oranges, and no-one in this climate is going to invest their money for a possible return five years hence. No-one is going to do it because of the instability created.

The previous speaker and the government are advocating that these members rip out their orange trees and plant vines, thereby killing the one industry where there is some glimmer of hope. The wine industry is doing quite well. But, if everyone enters that industry, that industry too will be crippled. That is exactly what is going to happen. It is absolute nonsense.

Under the policies you represent we have had increasing unemployment, increasing foreign ownership and increasing foreign debt, and the solution being put forward by the likes of you and your government is more of the same. You want to take us further down the road which has already demonstrated what a disaster the policies of the government and, I might add, the policies of the previous government are.

If you want to go back to the culprit, go to that senile old phantom Gough Whitlam and look at what he did when he cut 25 per cent across the board off tariffs and killed all the electronic industries which should be employing our kids now. Within a couple of weeks of him imposing that cut in tariffs, they had all folded up and gone back overseas. That was the tragedy. That is the legacy we have been left by this nonsense which has been around permeating the ranks of government since 1974.

This policy is a failed policy. It is the policy of the international companies. If you want to say to the Australian people, `Are you prepared to sacrifice your domestic economy for world trade?' then that is fine, but you never have the nerve to say it.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. J.A. Crosio) —Order! The time for the debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.