Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. In the light of our democracy it is important to be up-front and direct with the Australian people about what you commit to prior to an election and what you then implement subsequent to an election. Honouring commitments to the Australian people, not consigning them to boxes called ‘core promises’ and ‘non-core promises’, is in fact the lifeblood of an effectively operating democracy. We ask ourselves why cynicism emerges in the Australian community about the operation of this place. It goes to the practices that we have seen so often in the past whereby things were consigned to the dustbin of history once governments got past the day of the election itself. That period of core and non-core promises sits squarely in the mind and the recollection of the Australian people.

On education, we said before the election that we would establish a National Curriculum Board to deliver for the first time in Australia’s history a national education curriculum for schools. We have implemented that; we have appointed the board. That is the No. 1 first achievement and the first time that a government of Australia has actually taken steps to bring about a national curriculum in this country through the agency of a national board.

Secondly, on the question of infrastructure, we committed to the Australian people to establish Infrastructure Australia. In the first or second cabinet meeting of this government we took a decision to proceed with that and, as the minister for infrastructure just said, that legislation will be introduced in a matter of days or weeks. We will for the first time in the history of the Commonwealth have the national government taking national leadership in the provision and planning of infrastructure across this country. That is the second commitment honoured.

Thirdly, on the question of broadband, as a result of regulatory advice from the ACCC and decisions taken based on that on the part of the minister for communications, we have the ADSL2+ rollout by Telstra, which brings higher speed broadband to up to 2.4 million extra Australians—one instalment in terms of the much larger program of reform we have in mind when it comes to the overall rollout of fibre optic to the node broadband services across Australia.

On health we committed to the Australian people before the election that for the first time the national government would provide incentive payments to the states to do something about elective surgery waiting lists—a matter of deep concern to working families across Australia. In the past the response has been to blame the states. Labor have taken the attitude: what do we do to fix it? Therefore, we took a decision to provide incentive payments up-front. The sum of $150 million has been committed and that money is beginning to flow. That is the fourth commitment honoured. Then we go to the whole question of what we do more broadly with the states and territories. We said that we wanted to get—

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