Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are not suggesting are you, member for Mayo, that productivity is not a part of the economy? Productivity is the No. 1 indicator of a healthy economy. During a global economic downturn, such as this government has experienced, we obviously need to step in and do something and not, as is the opposition policy, wait and see. Now that is a great policy!

When things are a bit tough, it is okay for any responsible, healthy household to borrow. If you have an income of a hundred grand it is not inappropriate to borrow five grand. No-one would suggest that that is a bad thing. So the government is taking responsible decisions to make sure that that borrowing can be paid off, that we can return the budget to surplus and ensure that our net debt remains the lowest of any major advanced economy in the world.

It is great to go around the electorate and see what we have proposed. It is great to look at the black spot projects and how they will save lives. It is great to look at social housing. Now there is a quiet revolution. I think that what we have done and are doing for homelessness is wonderful. I think the Prime Minister’s first white paper was on homelessness. Why? Because it is something that he cares passionately about. You judge a society by how it treats those who are less fortunate not how it looks after millionaires, the upper middle class and the like. You judge a society by how it looks after the unfortunate. When the Commonwealth government deserted the field when it came to public housing what did they do? They rewarded landlords. That is how they addressed homelessness. They did not build units of public housing; instead, they said, ‘Landlords, here’s a bit of extra money in your kitty,’ as if that was a good thing, as if that was good policy.

Look at the policies we are rolling out which will stimulate jobs and ensure that the builder living next door to me—in fact, I have two builders living next door to me and a plumber living on the other side—will have work. They will be able to go to government web pages and phone up government helplines and find out where the work is. If they are not big enough to win the tender they can phone up the successful tenderer and say, ‘What work do you have for a plumber?’ or a builder, a painter, a glazier or whatever.

It is great to be a part of a government that has a plan. We are not the wait-and-see government, we are a government that says, ‘Let’s get out and do the hard stuff.’ We will cop flak from those opposite but, as I said, it would be great to hear them propose rather than oppose; it would be great to hear them put together a proposition rather than just remain the opposition, as if that is their reason for being.

It was great to see the other day that credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s reaffirmed Australia’s triple A rating, the highest rating that it gives to any country. That is a great pat on the back for the Prime Minister; it is similar to the pat on the back given to him by President Barack Obama in terms of his saying that this is what we need to do. I think he used the line, ‘If I had done what the Prime Minister of Australia had suggested, we would all be in a much better place.’ That is high praise indeed from one of the most recognisable and powerful people in the world.

So it is great to see that we are doing this responsibly. When we see fancy corflutes pulled out in question time—lots of stunts and lots of opportunities to say ‘no’ rather than saying what they would do. What would be the responsible decisions they would take to make up for the significant income shortfall? Were they at the mining dinner last night? Did they talk to any of the mining companies and say how difficult it has been for the mining companies that have had to lay off person after person—even in a state like South Australia that has only nine or 10 mines? I know there are a couple more good projects on the horizon.

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