Wayne Swan (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

The reforms that are required to ensure that we have strong growth across the whole of this country, but most particularly in Western Australia and Queensland, are precisely the reforms that go to the core of the Rudd government’s five-point plan. And it has been the complacency of those opposite over a long period of time, when it came to investment in skills, when it came to their failure to deal with infrastructure bottlenecks, that has put upward pressure on inflation and made it harder in all states of Australia, but most particularly in those states, to have strong growth with low inflation.

So the answer to the question is a very simple one: put in place a raft of reforms that lift productivity, lift economic growth and put downward pressure on inflation. And that is what our reform of federal-state relations is all about. That is what the Deputy Prime Minister is talking about when she is talking about investing in skills. That is what the minister for infrastructure is talking about: things that those opposite could not do for 11 long years. So if you cannot be part of the solution, you certainly will never ever be fit to govern this country.

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