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

I welcome the question from the member for Wentworth because it goes to: how do we make the federation work? How do we make the federation work in those areas which mean something to working Australians and working families right across our nation? What it goes to is what sort of education system we are going to have—one where we simply buck-pass one to the other? It has gone on for too long. What sort of health system are we going to have—one where we just buck-pass to one another? What sort of climate change arrangements are we going to have? We have conflicting state and federal emissions trading regimes or renewable energy schemes. We say that what we want to have is a regime in which we have a cooperative federal arrangement with the states which has one objective: delivering a decent outcome for people who consume government services.

I think those opposite have not quite caught up with the 21st century. People are sick and tired and have had a gutful of politicians pointing the finger at each other between federal, state and local governments saying, ‘not my responsibility’, ‘not my responsibility’, ‘not my responsibility’. That is why we have said through COAG that we intend over the course of 2008 to have a work program which deals with education, which deals with health, which deals with climate change and each one of these matters.

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