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

The government’s strategy is Nation Building for Recovery. The government’s strategy is to build the economy up; the opposition’s strategy is to talk the economy down. That is it in a nutshell. Those opposite are happy to talk the economy down, to tear the economy down, because they have concluded that it might actually boost their political prospects. That is what it is all about.

Our strategy is clear. Nation Building for Recovery will support jobs, businesses, apprenticeships and training for today by investing in the nation-building infrastructure we need for tomorrow—nation-building infrastructure which a large slab of those opposite have a particular interest in supporting in their electorates and distancing themselves from here in Canberra. Seventy per cent of the government’s nation-building and economic stimulus plan has been targeted towards infrastructure. That means $60 billion is being invested in infrastructure like rail, roads, ports, broadband, solar energy and the biggest school modernisation program Australia has ever seen.

The budget alone invests $22 billion in further infrastructure stimulus. The consequence for jobs is that we will support more than 200,000 jobs that would otherwise be destroyed by the global economic recession—200,000 jobs which those opposite, we assume, would prefer to have thrown onto the unemployment queue. Many Australians will be witnessing construction rolled out at their schools across the nation, across our towns and communities, as we speak. I would ask the House to reflect on this number: 35,000 jobs will be rolled out across the country under our Nation Building for Recovery program. I would like to take the opportunity to report to the House that construction is already well underway. For the benefit of the parliament, I can table an updated list of projects which have been approved for construction. I can table, for example—and I will—a folder of projects already approved under round 1 of the Australian School Pride Program. We have projects here from the—

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