Senator COOK —My question is to Senator Hill in his capacity as Minister representing the Minister for Trade. Minister, can you confirm that the recently released balance of trade in goods and services showed a $16 billion deterioration in Australia's goods and services trade from a $1.57 billion surplus in 1996-97 to a $14.9 billion deficit in 1998-99? Can the government confirm that the $14.9 billion deficit in the 1998-99 year was the worst on record? Given the government's repeated claim of having fireproofed the Australian economy—please do not rely on Asia; you told us you fireproofed the economy on Asia—how does the government explain how it has presided over the loss of some $16 billion worth of export income in just two years?

Senator HILL (Environment and Heritage) —We all saw the shuffle of questions. It was necessary for Senator Cook to come into play, because obviously it was embarrassing to have Senator Campbell take the lead on this issue. But anyway, I welcome the question from Senator Cook on trade, because I can remember what happened under Labor on trade—a weak domestic economy, poor trade figures and economic crises in a domestic sense. That will not occur under this government, because we have the fundamentals of the economy sound.

Since coming into opposition, what has Senator Cook's alternative been in relation to trade? All he has advocated is spending more money—in effect, on buying a better outcome. `Why won't the government put more money into trade incentive schemes?' he said. But, of course, that was part of the recipe of failure of the Hawke and Keating governments; that was part of the reason that they could not run a balanced budget; that was part of the reason that they ran up a domestic budget deficit of some $50 billion over the last five years in government alone; it was part of the reason that they left us a domestic deficit of $10.3 billion.

So you can go down the Labor Party way of high taxation, high interest rates and high inflation—I remind Senator Cook, five per cent average over his period of government—or alternatively you can do it the Howard way under lower taxation, lower interest rates and lower inflation and get the fundamentals right. As I said, as the world economy improves, particularly our large markets in Asia, you then take the benefits from it.

But Senator Cook is right; it was a mistake of Mr Keating to be overreliant on the Asian market. We can all remember former Prime Minister Keating advocating almost a total concentration on Asia at the expense of other markets. It is true under the Howard government that we have sought to diversify our markets, and former trade minister Fischer did an exceptionally good job in that regard.

I can see that we are not getting the full benefits in terms of our international accounts as yet, but what we can be confident of is that, if you have the domestic fundamentals right, the benefits will flow in due course. I can assure Senator Cook that we are not going to go back down the Labor Party path of spending more public money to try to achieve that better trade outcome, because the lesson of history, Senator Cook, is that it simply does not work.

Senator COOK —Madam President, I ask a supplementary question. Since Senator Hill did not bother to answer the question at all, and instead concentrated on windy and inaccurate rhetoric, let me remind him of the questions I asked. Can the government confirm that the $14.9 billion deficit for the 1998-99 year was the worst on record? That was the first question. The second question was: given the government's repeated claim of having fireproofed the economy, how do you explain how you have presided over a loss of $16 billion worth of export income in just two years? This is your record; this is nothing to do with the Keating government—

The PRESIDENT —Senator Cook, the question should be directed to the chair.

Senator HILL (Environment and Heritage) —If Senator Cook is right, why are objective international experts talking about the miracle of the Australian economy? Why are international experts applauding the management by the Howard government of the Australian economy?

Senator Cook —Madam President, I rise on a point of order. You allowed him four minutes to run away from the question in his answer in chief, and he is now doing it again. Would you draw the minister's attention to the question, and we can hope and pray that he will get around to answering it sometime. If he cannot answer it, can he just sit down and be quiet.

The PRESIDENT —There is no point of order. The minister is dealing with the matter that you raised, albeit not in a fashion that you might like.

Senator HILL —I thought I was making it clear. The allegation of Senator Cook is that we have not fireproofed the Australian economy. What I am saying to Senator Cook in return is that international objective experts regard our performance as a miracle. Of course, it is not a miracle; it is the result of taking a lot of hard, difficult decisions against the constant opposition of a negative, carping Labor opposition. Nevertheless, the reforms that we have put in place are achieving a tremendous economic outcome. We are proud of that outcome and Senator Cook knows that in due course the trade accounts will show it as well.