Keating

Transcript of interview on lateline last night with Paul Keating

The real question today with the economy growing so rapidly and unemployment so low is why doesn't the tinder box go off? That is, why don't we get the big bang? The big bang in inflation and in wages back into the old dismal cycle? The answer is because of the structural changes. Nothing to do with Mr Costello's economic management ... nothing to do with Peter Costello and everything to do with Labor's structural changes from the '80s.

The great lie of the Howard Government in respect of workplace changes, they are simply a set of arrangements to keep unions out of workplaces. They've got nothing to do with productivity and the quicker we move away from that kind of discriminatory structure to a truly trust based co operative sharing of work and workloads, then we get back to reasonable levels of productivity and again, reasonable rates of growth in real wages.