Labor leader promises Australian corporations “a competitive business environment”

Promising to “deliver a competitive business environment” and declaring “we need a third wave of reform to bolster our flagging productivity growth”, Rudd made clear to representatives of some of Australia’s leading business entities that Labor was unreservedly dedicated to promoting corporate interests.

The opposition leader attacked Liberal Prime Minister John Howard for failing to make good on a 1997 pledge to deliver a 4 percent economic growth rate over six years. He declared: “What underlies this below-par performance is the slump in productivity growth, which during the 1990s was the backbone of our economic prosperity.”

Rudd’s reference to the 1990s was not wasted on the well-heeled audience, which included Westpac boss David Morgan, Rio Tinto’s Charlie Lenegan, Boral managing director Rod Pearce, ABN Amro’s Angus James and National Australia Bank’s John Stewart. The restructuring undertaken by all these companies prior to and during the 1990s was made possible by the pro-market “reforms” and deregulation carried through by the Hawke-Keating Labor governments from the mid-1980s until Labor lost office in 1996.

More
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/feb2007/rudd-f08.shtml