Page 2614 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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through in the last election. The real test in budgeteering, surely, is credibility. Credibility must be one of the most important issues that goes to whether we will endorse a party for government. Many of us political observers well remember Peter Bowers' extraordinary interview with Prime Minister Hawke, a couple of elections back, when Mr Bowers produced a printout of broken promises. It was all over the studio floor. It went like a wedding train, and it will probably be part of the funeral train for the Hawke Government.
One of the problems has been excessive promises, and ironically there has been a move by Mr Hawke and some of his friends further to the right of the Liberal Party on a number of issues - a most extraordinary event. I see Mr Berry wincing because I know he agrees with me. The fact is that coming with a promise to eradicate child poverty - a tragically empty promise, as it has turned out - is a process, which this Prime Minister has got this country into, of governing with the assistance of his mates.
We really want leaders. This Prime Minister, who sets the tone of his Government, draws great sustenance from John Curtin, who was a great Prime Minister of this country. I see the parallel more with Prime Minister Lyons, and I will be developing that theme in the Assembly at our next sitting.
But the fact is, Mr Speaker, that the Hawke Government has let the Australian people down. The Hawke Government is going to let into the Senate at the very least so many independents at the next election and, unless they are properly organised, there may be another period of DLP-type instability in this country at the Federal level. That is caused by a lack of credibility of the Labor Party and a number of internecine struggles in the Federal Liberal Party.
The Rally takes the view that it wants to look to this debate in terms of whether we are going to get credible leadership out of the last few months of the Hawke Government. One of the problems is that the Hawke Government is running itself in a haze of smoke from big, fat cigars, and the forgotten people are the community groups and the community itself, with the many broken promises that Mr Hawke has given.
Let me talk about a few of the aspects of the Liberal and National parties' economic and tax policy which are food for thought. Firstly, it is proposed to look very carefully at Australia's overseas aid program. That is going to look across the board at AIDAB's activities and some of the specific programs.
There is a move towards giving money out on a bilateral basis rather than a multilateral or a professional basis. There are extensive AIDAB activities in China at present. I have grave doubts as to what the purpose of all of that
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