PM warns against 'change for change's sake'

The Prime Minister has used an address to the Liberal Party's Federal Council in Sydney to warn against a change of Government simply for the sake of change.

John Howard told Liberal Party members the Government had achieved many social, economic and foreign policy goals.

"But it is never time for a change unless the change is for the better," he said.

He attacked the Opposition's union affiliations and questioned Labor's climate change policies.

"We can't think that you can have some nice costless response to climate change," he said.

Mr Howard says decisions on climate change are a profoundly economic matter.

"Because if we get the targets wrong, if we get the pace of change wrong, if we get these decisions wrong and we burden the Australian community with higher electricity prices than ought otherwise be the case, we will inflict enormous damage to Australian industry and inflict great pain on Australian households," he said.

'Sacred trust'

The Liberal Party's Federal Council has supported a resolution condemning Labor's plan to use money from the Future Fund for a high-speed broadband network.

Tasmania's shadow Attorney-General, Michael Hodgman, has lashed out at the Federal Opposition's proposal.

Mr Hodgman accused the Labor leader, Kevin Rudd, of proposing to steal from a sacred trust account.

"If any solicitor, any solicitor, anywhere in Australia did to the trust fund what con man Rudd is planning to do to the Future Fund, that solicitor would be immediately investigated, arrested, indicted, tried for embezzlement and fraudulent misappropriation," he said.