Page 2617 - Week 12 - Thursday, 16 November 1989
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hitting statement as to how he will depart from Mr Keating's use of interest rates to dampen demand in the economy.
The dampening of demand is a necessary anti-inflationary tactic, but the effect has been on the smaller people in Australia. The foreign debt of Australia - and it is widely recognised and commented upon - really is largely in the hands of a number of very large corporations which seem to be close to the Hawke Government. The large corporate borrowings in recent years have meant that sequentially Mr Keating has had to impose those dampening interest rate rises that have wreaked so much havoc on the ordinary community in this Territory and elsewhere in Australia.
We look towards any future Federal government making a more refined statement on that issue in the near future. It may well be that there is an almost irremediable legacy to be left by the Hawke Government in that area because a foreign debt is a foreign debt, and we are not a country that abrogates its responsibilities. It will be the working people of Australia who will have to climb and work the Australian people out of that. Small business, in its vast multitude in Australia, will have to work Australia out of the drift by the Hawke Government to the far right, large corporate business sector.
Mr Speaker, Mrs Grassby mentioned immigration, and she hotly defended the rights of the poor and the underprivileged to come to Australia. I have some experience in that area. There is an organisation in Canberra, the intergovernmental committee for migration, which runs a revolving fund, principally for Vietnamese family reunions. That revolving fund concept allows families that are already established in this country to fund the entry of their extended families. That is really what has gone on in history in non-regulated migratory movements.
I have long considered that that revolving fund concept could be put to use in this area. I think that could be one way in which the Federal Government could finetune its policy; it could look towards the revolving fund concept. I acknowledge that there is no point in having a revolving fund when no member of the family has yet established himself or herself in the country as a wage earner and saver. I do not see anything in the Liberal Party's policy that fails to recognise Australia's great tradition in that area.
I felt that Mrs Grassby's comments were frankly over the top in that regard and failed to reflect the largely bipartisan immigration policy that the two large Federal parties have had in this country for many years.
Mr Berry: Rubbish!
MR COLLAERY: Rubbish?
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