Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Deakin for his question—and it is lucky; I am just warming up. This is a government that has had to address 12 years of inaction and neglect of our skills system by the former government and, personally, by the Leader of the Opposition and, personally, by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, who did nothing to address the skills crisis as it loomed when they were in government, sitting around doing nothing. As I have had cause to mention to the House in the past, their inaction was actually made transparent to the world by the illuminating comments of the member for Goldstein, who helpfully said that when it came to a skills crisis they knew it was coming and it had arrived with force. What they never thought about was doing anything about it. There was no action on the skills crisis despite the fact that the skills crisis puts upward pressure on inflation and interest rates.

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