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Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has used the launch of a book by journalist Paul Kelly to savage the Howard government’s failure to deliver on economic reform.
Many of you will remember how I wrote earlier this year that the last 30 years of reform were a mistake and that the current, admittedly mild, recession proves it. Such recollections are unfortunate. When I wrote those words, I was angry. They do not bear repeating.
I have moved on from my Monthly article. So should you.
What I now know is that those reforms were devised an implemented in their entirety by the Australian Labor Party, and were not altered in any way between 1996 and 2007.
You will remember Labor on the sidelines during those difficult years demanding labour-market deregulation and the sale of government enterprises. No? Well, I certainly didn’t see you doing the hard yards on economic reform.
Why didn’t the Howard government reform the economy? Because economic reform requires courage they didn’t have. The sheer, uncompromising balls to just hand everyone $900 for no reason.
Like all great reforms, this one produced winners and losers. Entrenched interests, such as the powerful not-wanting-$900 lobby, fought us tooth and nail. But we won, because we won the argument and convinced millions of doubters, although I won’t deny money changed hands.
Sure, we have made other economic reforms. We reformed the petrol industry to be more… well, I forget what we ended up doing there, but it was tough, whatever it was. We did the same for supermarkets. And we deregulated taxes on pre-mixed drinks—deregulated them way up, as I recall.
The contrast between our reform agenda and 11 years of inaction under John Howard is stark. After all, anyone can privatise Telstra. But it’s far more difficult to do as we have done, and resolutely refuse to buy it back.
Yes, when the history of the Australian economy comes to be rewritten, no reform will rank beside my decision to float the Australian $900.
I only hope that the prime ministers who come after me have the good grace to recognise the achievement.
Kevin Rudd has moved to take credit for the past three decades of economic reform, ditching his previous insistence on travelling back to 1979.
