The release today of Labor's platform for the next election demonstrates that Mr Beazley has not even started the hard work of building serious policies.
It is a bland collection of motherhood statements crowned with a blatant piece of plagiarism.
The concept of mutual obligation lies at the heart of the Coalition's approach to welfare policy. In fact, it was the description I gave to the Coalition's Work-for-the-Dole scheme, still secretly opposed by Mr Beazley and many of his colleagues after bowing to public pressure to let it through the Senate.
There is no evidence that Labor has either listened or learnt in its period in Opposition.
The unfunded platitudes cobbled together today show this is an Opposition which will do whatever it takes to win Government. No Australian should trust Mr Beazley after he and his party betrayed the country while in office.
Australians should take heed of Gareth Evans when he says that Labor would be "utterly implausible" if it tried to present itself as a "different type of outfit" from the party which, led by Paul Keating and Mr Beazley, was so resoundingly beaten in 1996.
Just over 20 months ago, Mr Beazley left the nation with a $10 billion Budget black hole after Labor had run up $70 billion of Commonwealth debt in its last five years of Government.
Remember housing interest rates of 17 and 18 percent, the highest unemployment since the Great Depression and a raft of broken tax promises.
The platform shows that Labor will say or do anything to get a vote.
21 November 1997