Mr COSTELLO(5.20) —Mr Deputy Speaker, I congratulate the honourable member for Adelaide (Dr Catley) on his maiden speech, which was thought-provoking and witty. We are always enriched by the heredity of the Welsh.

I acknowledge the presence of my wife and parents in this chamber today and I thank them for so many things that cannot be counted.

We sit here as a House of Representatives and it is as a representative that I come to this place. I am conscious of the fact that I sit in this House as the representative of the electors-all the electors-of Higgins and I am conscious of the honour they have bestowed upon me. The people of Higgins have been well represented in this chamber in the past. They will be well represented in the future.

This House has, over a long period of time, established a fine tradition of procedure to allow its members to discharge their primary duty of representation. We shall not represent our electors well, however, if we allow the procedures of this House, designed to enhance this representative role, to decay or degenerate. It is of concern to me that in the recent past there has developed a tendency to use the valuable Question Time for long answers and expansive statements. This diminishes the number of questions that can be asked. This practice also diminishes the accountability of the Executive to the electors. There has, unfortunately, also developed a tendency to guillotine debate and to introduce legislation with little or inadequate notice. This too diminishes the function of this House in acting as a check on Executive power, in calling to account ministerial administration, and in scrutinising proposed legislation.

We should take note of the fact that in many countries around the world at this moment people are struggling to set up representative Houses as a check on executive power and we should draw inspiration from them not to let our own traditions decay. Australia has been blessed with fine parliamentary institutions and we are their guardians. If we, the guardians of this great parliamentary institution do not properly discharge our duties we betray our past, we compromise our future and we let down those who have placed their trust in us. In the contest between the Executive and the Parliament, I am for the Parliament.

In his speech setting out the Government's program on the occasion of the opening of this the Thirty-sixth Parliament, His Excellency the Governor-General cited two overriding goals of Government policy: first, the establishment of a stronger, more competitive and environmentally sustainable economy and, secondly, the creation of a fairer and more compassionate society. Today I wish to address myself to each of those goals.

When we talk of creating a fairer and more compassionate society, what do we mean? Over decades arguments have raged over which system of government best creates such a society. Some have argued that a society where government controls industry and controls and directs the production and distribution of goods is a society that is inherently more compassionate and fair. Others have argued the converse. In this century the argument has raged between those who believe that by enhancing government power it, the government, can deliver fairness and compassion to its citizens and others who have maintained that in the interests of fairness the power of government itself must be curtailed and the compassionate resources of our citizens released.

At its highest point the system of government ownership and government control was practised in the Soviet model. We should never forget that this system was practised and implemented in the name of producing a fair and compassionate society. All through the dark years of failure and repression there were those whose faith never wavered that that system would produce a fair and compassionate society. But now the failure of that model is nakedly exposed.

There could hardly be a person in this House who has not been moved by the valiant rejection of that system in nation after nation over recent years. That system proved a patent failure in delivering compassion and fairness. It was completely discredited by its economic failure. It has been rejected by those who suffered so long and so painfully under it. Recent international events have proved clearly and conclusively that government control, government regulation, government intervention do not necessarily pave the path to a fairer and more compassionate society. Perhaps for the first time this century the argument over this issue is finally ended. It has ended decisively in favour of private ownership, private enterprise, and, above all, in favour of liberal democracy. Some commentators have gone so far as to say that the end of this argument has signalled the end of history. I do not consider that we are now at the end of history, but we have certainly reached the end of the argument. Freedom has won.

Does the end of this controversy signal the end of controversy in our political debate? Does this mean that politics is no longer about ideas and values? Does this mean that politics shall now be given over to the technocrats? Does this mean that in this House our debate is solely between one set of administrators and another? I think not.

I think that there are still important issues that divide this House-born of different priorities, different goals and ultimately different ideas. I do not underestimate the importance of ideas in political debate. Ideas are our engine room. They set the goals to which our legislation and administration are directed. Our ideas, our goals, are the directional guides in our approach to the day-to-day details of legislation and administration. Without that directional impulse we run the risk of being overwhelmed by immediate detail and urgency, which assumes a life of its own, but leads us nowhere.

But in making the observation about the importance of ideas, I should sound an important caveat. At the end of the day it is people: parents, children, students, employees, young people and the old-it is the unique individual-that are more important even than ideas. Much misery has been visited on individuals down through the years in the name of an idea or an ideology. We should not forget that people are the end which we serve. Politics is not an end in itself. We are not here to serve ideas. Our task is much greater and infinitely more important than that.

Our system of government is one of checks and balances. It requires compromise-compromise between the Executive and the Parliament, compromise between one House and another, compromise between the States and the Commonwealth and compromise between groups of persons with legitimate interests and other groups with other legitimate interests. There is room for compromise-indeed demand for it-in a system of checks and balances. Clear goals and ideas will prevent us from the cynical compromise that leads nowhere. The checks and balances prevent us from the excesses that misguided ideas might otherwise lead to.

So how should we go about our tasks, our goal, of creating a more fair and compassionate society? Shall we set our direction towards giving government and its agencies more money and more power to make people good? Or shall we seek to inspire the compassion of those who comprise our society?

I regret to say that there has been an unfortunate tendency in Australia over recent years to believe that one's compassion is marked by one's willingness to tax some and give the proceeds, less administration costs, to others.

We should care deeply enough about those who need compassion to make decisions that really help them, and really help them for the long term. We do not serve people by knee-jerk and automatic responses. There are times when their problems can be alleviated by government spending, but there are many occasions when that is neither a full nor a complete answer.

The principal causes of poverty in Australia are family breakdown and unemployment. It is family breakdown which leads to youth homelessness. It is family breakdown which leaves supporting parents unable to enter the work force and unable to provide for the nurture of their children.

We would help the unemployed by securing them real jobs in a productive economy. We would limit the victims of family breakdown by doing what we can to strengthen the family unit. This is why our deliberations and our policies should always be guided towards the goal of preserving the family unit and making our economy productive. This is why it is so important to get our basic economic decision-making right. At the end of the day the fate of Australians depends upon it.

It is tempting to stand here and talk about the economy as if it were just a statistic or a series of tables. It is tempting to stand in the luxurious and imposing surrounds of this House and to think that somehow this is the engine of the Australian nation; it is not. The engine room of the Australian nation is found in the shops, the factories, the farms and a whole host of workplaces scattered far and wide across this nation. Some are large but predominantly they are small.

It is the enterprise and the work of those millions that create the wealth of this nation. These are the people who sought no government commission to trade; they sought no government program to establish their business or job; they asked for no government assistance to maintain it. They do not ask the Government to be a nanny, to scold, to reprove and to smother them with advice.

What they ask of government is an unobtrusive administration so that they can continue to generate that wealth, continue to provide for their families and continue to pursue their aspirations. In going about their ordinary business, these millions of wealth generators contribute to the well-being of all. So, in the contest between the government and the citizen, I am for the citizen.

His Excellency in his Speech outlined the Government's program on small business. The Government proposes to develop a response to one of the reports of this House. Reports and responses have their place but they are no substitute for action. We do not achieve anything real for small business in this country by responding merely to our own recommendations.

The real problems of small business in this nation are exorbitant interest rates, industrial awards that are wholly inappropriate and the cost burden of attending to the myriad government reporting and regulation requirements which have marginal utility. If we did something-actually did something-about those problems we might help small business. I shall look for deeds, not words, from this Government.

Bearing this in mind, I approach with real caution the stated intention of the Government to pursue broad-based structural reform in this term. I will take a great personal interest in monitoring its achievement. I welcome the fact that at least the Government recognises the problem. The goal of structural reform is to produce a more efficient infrastructure that will lead to higher productivity in the Australian economy.

Structural reform will undoubtedly mean ending privileges for some, but that is not its goal; its goal is to end those particular privileges which visit burdens on many. Those who lose their privileges may clamour loud and long but we should not be directed by that. Those who receive the benefits are diverse and scattered; their voices consequently muted. But we should not direct our policy according to the sound and the fury; we should direct it according to the real benefits to be achieved.

Over recent years I have taken a particular interest in labour management and industrial relations. This is a classic case where the sound and fury of organised groups with privileges to defend so easily drown out the voices of those disadvantaged by current arrangements. The voice of those thrown out of work because they refuse to associate with trade unions they disagree with does not sound as a fury but as a small voice-nonetheless a small voice that needs to be heard in this chamber.

Such also is the voice of employees who have no right to stipulate fully and determine the terms on which they will work. This too is the voice of those who are unable to agree freely with their employees on terms of work for mutual benefit.

The sound and the fury against that small voice raise an important argument for this place. Modern trade unionism has, to some degree, become an argument about monopoly control-the monopoly control of labour by officialdom. The powers and monopolies in our system are so great that some fear to name them. But in the contest between the powerful monopoly and the individual, I am for the individual.

I count myself fortunate to enter this House at the beginning of a new decade and at the close of an old century. I am perhaps part of a younger generation now entering this House. If we measure our political formation by the great issues that have been debated in this House, I am perhaps a representative of the post-Vietnam war generation. In personal terms, for my generation, unlike the generation 10 years older, Vietnam does not mean conscription; Vietnam means another regime where repressive government has stifled individual liberty and impoverished a nation.

The exodus, at extreme cost, of those who left that country seeking freedom is a reminder of the deep thirst for freedom in the deep reservoir of human nature. It is a reminder of the danger of ideology. It is a reminder of the danger of government excess. It is a reminder that government should be subservient to the citizen; the Executive accountable to the representative parliament; and the monopoly give way in the face of the individual.

These are the broad principles that direct me and I believe these are the principles by which a government's success or failure should be measured. These are measures of a fair and compassionate society. Together they enrich the soul of the nation.

Honourable members-Hear, hear!

Debate interrupted.