James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

He is a very good member indeed. He believes passionately in powering up North Queensland. When he heard me in my first speech in parliament say, ‘We need a baseload power station to power up North Queensland,’ he came to see me straightaway and he said, ‘Thank God we’ve finally got someone with vision who’s passionate about making these things happen’—like him. This is going to happen across the political divide, and this is my point. The previous government did not have the spirit of cooperation that this new government has. We are committed to being outcome driven for the common good of all people. That is the big difference, they are the new ideas and this is the new consensus

That is why this country, over the decades ahead, will benefit from a great Labor government. Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister is a visionary and he is forward thinking. That is why he has brought down such a fantastic budget, which builds on infrastructure. Because basic key infrastructure has been totally ignored for the last 11 years, it has been left to this government to fix up the failings of the previous government—because you have to have good basic roads and you have to have good basic rail in order to transport—

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