Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be disagreed to.

We have heard the word ‘infrastructure’ pass Liberal lips more times in the past day than we have in the past decade and it has taken a Labor government to pursue its nation-building funds legislation in order to bring about that outcome. We have had a decade or more of neglect by the former government, of ignoring one of the nation’s fundamental economic problems, and the Rudd government is committed to not only redressing the problems that arise from that but also investing for the future in the productivity-generating, job-generating infrastructure that is so crucial to the nation’s economy. The government has resolved to vote against all the amendments that have been passed by the Senate, and I will present the reasons for that in due course.

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