MINISTER SIGNALS RETURN TO DARK AGES

21-September-2010

Yesterday’s extraordinary attack by Industry Minister Kim Carr on all sides of politics has left Australian industry and innovators scratching their heads about his second-term agenda.

In a speech to Universities Australia in Melbourne, Mr Carr lashed out at critics of Labor’s dismal first term in his portfolio – blasting his critics on both the left and the right for failing to support his outdated, interventionist approach.

This included an attack on the Coalition for its rightful scrutiny of the tens of billions of dollars of wasteful handouts issued during his time as Minister.

He didn’t even spare Labor’s alliance partners, the Greens, laughably accusing critics “to Labor’s left” of seeing the Gillard Government as “too economically responsible”.

Even more ominously, Mr Carr signalled an intent in the speech to accelerate his “redistributive” approach to industry, innovation and science policy – an approach that both major parties had sensibly rejected in the years prior to his Ministerial appointment.

“Far from embracing Julia Gillard’s rhetoric about the need for adversarial approaches to politics to be abandoned, Mr Carr is blatantly thumbing his nose at her,” said Shadow Industry Minister Sophie Mirabella.

“It’s clear that Mr Carr wants to continue his stubborn approach of brooking no criticism, picking winners and trying to force a series of poor decisions on the country, as was often the case during the last three years.

“This is a very worrying message for business and for Australia’s innovative future.

“He should step back and acknowledge that he has been distributing funding like confetti for very little return, but sadly it seems he isn’t interested in changing tack.

“Unfortunately, the obvious conclusion from yesterday’s speech is that he is determined only to squander further billions of taxpayers’ money.”