John Howard (Bennelong, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I believe that high-speed broadband is important to the education future of this country. I just do not believe that the Australian taxpayer should pay for something through raiding the Future Fund and plundering $2 billion from the budget which is available for enhancement of communications services in the Australian bush. I do not believe that that $4.7 billion should be taken—$2.7 billion from the Future Fund and $2 billion from rural people—to subsidise commercial operations which ought, as an operation of market forces, provide the broadband that the Australian community needs. This is the Australian Labor Party equivalent of the great debates the British Labour Party used to have about clause 4 of the Constitution and whether you would renationalise a whole lot of industries.

While I am on my feet, can I say that the member for Lilley asked me to validate the argument I made that this was an education budget. His leader had asked me some questions and invited me, and I have now had an opportunity to look at the paper from which he quoted. It is a very revealing examination. Let me read from under the title ‘Education’, 6.10 of Budget Paper No. 1. Bear in mind that the Leader of the Opposition asked me two questions that were calculated to demonstrate that expenditure on education, so far from rising, had actually fallen.

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