Page 2458 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
better able to put in place some legislation on how to do business and that he is better qualified than the people who engage in business every day of their lives. His example is the Fyshwick fruit markets, the real epitome of the problem between landlords and tenants as to how they do their business together.
Mr Connolly: It is an example of Adam Smith's perfect market.
MR KAINE: I am sure that you are an expert on economics and that you would understand what a perfect market is! Since you have been out there and really practised in the private sector, you would understand the concepts of a perfect market, no doubt! Perhaps you can explain to me where one exists.
Mr Connolly: In classic economics texts, it is a fruit market.
MR KAINE: I doubt that the people who trade at Fyshwick would consider it to be a perfect market, and I doubt very much whether the landlords who provide the accommodation for the traders at Fyshwick would regard it as a perfect market either.
Mr Berry: You do not know much about Adam Smith, and you do not know much about economics.
MR KAINE: It is very interesting that Mr Berry challenges my qualifications in economics. Only at the weekend your whacky mob expelled from your party a guy named Barry Reid. For years I duelled with Barry in the old House of Assembly. I used to describe his economics as bazzanomics, because he had the socialist approach to it. It was different from mine but, although we sparred for a long time in the old House of Assembly in relation to economics, I had a great deal of respect for Barry Reid, and I still do. You did not have the sense to put him in this Legislative Assembly and, to use your words, you were so stupid as to expel him from your party.
Barry Reid was the only guy whom I know who, as a practising member of the Labor Party for the last 15 years, had any concept of economics. What did you do with him? You dumped him because you do not understand what economics is about. That is why Barry Reid is an ex-member of the Labor Party. If he were here today, he and I would be having a much more interesting debate about economics than I could ever conceive of having with any of you lot because you do not understand what the word is all about.
Do not quote Adam Smith to me. I suggest that you read his writings first and then those of a few more modern economists who relate to the world of 1990. Then we will have an interesting debate about economics.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .