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

The member for Higgins does not like this number—on a $247,000 average mortgage, means that we have a $400 a month interest rate hit as a result of the Costello interest rate regime—$100 a week. So if you calculate it on the basis of an average mortgage and the impact of 200 basis point increases in official interest rates—10 interest rate rises in a row—that is where it leads you. That is the practical consequence for working families—a Costello $400 a month interest rate hit or the Liberals’ $400 a month interest rate hit.

The question that the parliament rightly asked itself is: what is the correct economic strategy in response to this? The first element is responsible economic management, and that is why we have brought down a $22 billion budget surplus. The second, of course, is to ensure that we have a program of comprehensive economic reform to deal with declining productivity growth in the Australian economy. These are the matters about which the Deputy Prime Minister and I have spoken in recent days—the productivity revolution and the education revolution which is necessary to fuel long-term skills growth. Then there is the challenge of nation building—and I will come back to that in a minute. And, of course, to assist working families, pensioners and carers on the way through this difficult period, there is our policy of a $55 billion Working Families Support Package and $7.5 billion to assist with extra payments to pensioners and carers.

But the real challenge is how we take this entire economic agenda of the nation forward to deal with our real, long-term challenges: responsible economic management; acting on the productivity challenge for the education revolution; and implementing a program of nation building. This government stands proudly behind the fact that it is about to embark upon the single largest nation-building program in the Commonwealth’s history. We have committed ourselves to a $76 billion Infrastructure Investment Program focused on our roads, our rail, our ports, our communications and our other critical infrastructure. The government will be investing $26 billion in roads and rail infrastructure through 2008-09 to the end of the AusLink 2 period; $20 billion in infrastructure, through the Building Australia Fund, on transport and also on other key infrastructure priorities; up to $5 billion on a national high-speed broadband network; $15 billion in education infrastructure through the Education Investment Fund on trades training centres, computers in our classrooms and investing in our universities; and $11 billion in health and hospitals infrastructure as well.

Beyond this national infrastructure plan for Australia, the biggest national infrastructure plan in the history of the Commonwealth, a $76 billion plan, we also look with keen interest to what the private sector is doing in the period ahead. If we look at the most recent capex data produced by the ABS, we see that there are significant plans out there in the private sector to boost their investment in capital outlays into the future as well. This is a significant plan. When we add what is canvassed in the capex data, we see businesses planning to invest more than $100 billion in 2008-09.

The way ahead through these difficult economic times is to have a clear and positive plan—a clear and positive plan of responsible economic management, a clear and positive plan on productivity growth through an economic reform agenda anchored in the education revolution and, on top of that, a $76 billion nation-building plan for the future. This separates us out from those opposite, who, I fear, in recent days, have seen it to their political advantage to begin talking the economy down rather than coming up with a positive plan for the economy’s future. This government is about the economic future. Those opposite continue to revel in the past and are consoled by their inertia in the past as well.

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