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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The member for Sturt will indeed be challenged by the events which come his way in a few months time and as to where his loyalties, to the extent that they exist, will lie. Real leadership consists of putting aside differences, in the national interest. A failure of leadership consists of putting your own personal political interests first, your own personal political survival first and that is what we have seen worked out in the 24 hours that has unfolded since the events of yesterday morning.

What the governments of Australia have done today is agree on an implementation strategy for this nation-building plan for the future. What the governments of Australia have done is sit down around a table and work out a timetable for delivering stimulus to 7,500 primary schools across Australia. They have worked out a timetable for implementing a program to deliver additional funding for science wings and language laboratories in 500 secondary schools across the country. What the governments of Australia have done is sat down and worked out a timetable for implementing $6 billion worth of new outlay for 20,000 new units of social housing across the country. What the governments of Australia have done today is sit down and agree on a timetable to roll out what we will now do about black spots and about the recovery and repair of regional roads, together with additional infrastructure to be delivered to local governments across the country. That is what the governments of Australia have been doing today—sitting down, working out the best way we can advance this core challenge, dealing with the immediate impact of how we go about generating jobs in the near term and how, through that, we support the construction of infrastructure which the nation needs for the long term. That is what governments have been doing.

The other thing governments have been doing today is agreeing not just on the timetable but on the machinery for doing it as well. I have confirmed the appointment of a coordinator-general for the Commonwealth, Mr Mike Mrdak from the Prime Minister’s department, a public servant who has served both sides of politics well previously in the transport portfolio. Also, there will be coordinators in each of the principal program areas which the Commonwealth is funding through this unprecedented nation-building plan. State premiers and chief ministers have agreed to appoint their own coordinators-general of works, together with separate coordinators where necessary for each of the program areas. This is the practical business of government. Furthermore, what premiers and chief ministers have agreed to work on now is: how do we best bring together the various labour market programs, training programs, education programs and other programs, including those associated with regional development, to support those who will lose their jobs as a consequence of this global economic recession? That is what leadership is about—leadership we have seen from the Liberal Premier of Western Australia; leadership we have seen from the other premiers and chief ministers; leadership which has been conspicuous in its total absence in the politically self-serving strategy embarked upon by the member for Wentworth seeking purely to save his own political hide.

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