Senator IAN MACDONALD (6:21 PM) —Whilst I have made some comments on this Commonwealth Grants Commission report in the past, the previous speaker did not speak about this report at all but spoke about a colleague’s address on a bill before the Senate. I did not listen intently to what was said by Senator Bartlett—

Senator Sterle —Barnett! It’s the wrong speaker you’ve got.

Senator IAN MACDONALD —sorry, it was Senator Barnett—but I did hear elements of his speech, and I think his speech has been grossly, viciously and very unfairly represented by the previous speaker. In fact, Senator Barnett was making the point that the trades were a very honourable occupation to embark upon. In Sydney, we used to talk about the latte set, the latte socialists, who would attend university, sit around in cafes and then run along to Labor Party meetings. The attitude that you had to go to university to be any good in society grew up in the Hawke-Keating years. Senator Barnett was saying there was a perception in Labor ranks in those days that, unless you went to uni and drank lattes down in one of the trendy cafes in Sydney or Melbourne, you were not worth looking at. Senator Barnett was quite rightly saying that the trades are a very honourable calling.

That is something I have said over many years in various other forums. I have encouraged young people to think seriously about the trades rather than simply going to university because everyone else went to university and it was the socially acceptable thing to do. Many people went to university who were not really interested in it and not well equipped for it. I think Senator Barnett made that point. That reached its peak in the Hawke-Keating years in the latte society, which so many in the Labor Party were a part of.

Like the Prime Minister, I did not go to a wealthy private school—I know that a lot of Labor Party people did—and there are many others on this side who did not. My parents did not have the money to send me to university, so I worked as an articled clerk during the day and studied externally through the University of Queensland at night to achieve my solicitor qualification. Many of my extended family are proudly in the trades—and very successfully and rewardingly so. My wife’s nephew was not terribly successful at school, but he is a good boilermaker. He is barely 40 and he earns more than twice what I earn in this place. Of course, in the great economy that the Howard government has given us—with the mining boom that has been supported by the Howard government and its export policies—those in the trades are earning enormous money.

I was recently in Gladstone talking to the boss of a construction organisation. He is a very successful businessman in Gladstone and he has built up a business in which he employs 200 people. I said to him, ‘You must be finding it difficult to get tradesmen to work on the extension of the Gladstone port that you have embarked upon.’ He said, ‘Yes, it is, but we have to pay the market rate.’ I said, ‘What is the market rate?’ He said, ‘A carpenter earns $150,000 a year and the boilermaker who works night shift overseeing the work earns in excess of $200,000 a year.’ I think that is probably more than the Prime Minister earns. And good luck to them! Those of us on this side—(Time expired)