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

I welcome the interjection by the member for O’Connor. I was in Western Australia last week and I was with the WA Premier, who was supporting this government’s investment in nation building, supporting this government’s investment in the Oakajee port development, supporting this government’s investment in the Northbridge link in the middle of the city of Perth, supporting this government’s investment in a range of infrastructure projects. It seems that at that stage the government was engaged in the business of building the economy up. The only contribution the Leader of the Opposition seemed to be making in Perth last week was a dubious contribution to retail sales in a particular supermarket outlet, where he was not entertained for an extraordinarily long period of time.

On the question of net debt, the government’s position is that 13.8 per cent of GDP is the lowest of the other major advanced economies by a country mile. This entire strategy on the part of those opposite rests on an absolute lie and the Leader of the Opposition knows that fact. That is what this is about. He knows that taxation revenues have collapsed $210 billion at a time when—

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