Senator GEORGE CAMPBELL (3:26 PM) —I also seek to take note of answers by Senators Minchin and Abetz during question time today. It is important to note that the responses that we got from both those ministers to the questions asked in respect of foreign debt and in respect of skills training in this country were both tired and predictable—just like the arrogant Howard government itself. This is a government that has no economic plan for the future. It has no plan for an innovative industry policy. It has no industry policy. It does not have a strategy about developing Australia’s manufacturing base. It does not have a policy about promoting innovative manufacturing industries capable of competing in the global marketplace.

If you look at what has occurred since the transition from the Hawke-Keating years to the Howard years, you will see there has been a very significant decline in the export of elaborately transformed manufactures, from about 18 per cent to about 3.4 per cent. More worrying is that, on top of that, we are now starting to see the flow of manufacturing jobs out of this country to elsewhere around the globe. In fact, what the Howard government has managed to do is translate our industry strategy from one of exporting elaborately transformed manufactured goods to actually exporting manufacturing jobs—a terrific strategy indeed, a really innovative strategy from the Howard government!

It seems—and it is obvious from the two speeches we have heard from the other side—that the Treasurer has issued to every member of the government an economic cheat sheet of myopic facts and half-truths that can be trotted out to dull any criticism of their shoddy record. And what a record it is. They have been asleep at the wheel in terms of the Australian economy for the past nine years.

I want to deal with the issue of debt. We have heard Senator Chapman say, ‘Foreign debt is no longer an issue; we are dealing with it.’ We have heard Senator Minchin say, ‘We have to separate public debt from private debt; we have to distinguish between the two.’ I did not hear the Prime Minister or the Treasurer in 1995 arguing that there was a distinction between public debt and private debt. I did not see anything on the debt truck that said, ‘This half of the debt truck is public debt, that half is private debt and you only have to worry about the front half.’ It was all lumped in together. The argument by both John Howard and Peter Costello in 1995 was about the totality of our foreign debt and the impact that that was having on the Australian economy. What has happened to that foreign debt? It has grown to an extent where it is now $427.7 billion—$20,000 for every man, woman and child in this country.

At the same time, despite what Senator Chapman says, we have seen household savings slump to where they are now in the negative. We owe more money in this country per head of population than we are earning. That situation has escalated and grown under the Howard government’s management of the economy. We are also seeing Australian industry struggle to compete in the marketplace. Why? Because it cannot get the skilled workers that it requires to retain and build its productivity. That is why productivity is in decline. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.