Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Showing how bored they are by economics and how unreal their economic credibility is in the modern age, they are saying, ‘Take it off the pink batts program.’ Of course, we are talking about a permanent change to student income support that would cost more than a billion dollars.

What I am saying to the Leader of the Opposition is: please reconsider your position. But if the Leader of the Opposition does not do that then I would at least ask the Leader of the Opposition to do this. I fear that this playing of politics with students is going to end in a very cruel, cruel joke. I fear that what is going to happen here is that the Liberal Party will play politics with this, will block our measures and will create the illusion that it is prepared to invest a billion dollars extra in student income support and then, when we come to the next election and the opposition is required to produce its figures and costings under the Charter of Budget Honesty, that $1 billion extra investment will melt away. A cruel joke will be played on Australian students: holding out the prospect of an extra billion dollars now, and that billion dollars being snatched away at the election. I would say to the members of the Liberal Party and the National Party who have been genuinely concerned about this matter—and I know that there are some: imagine the position you will be in at the next election if you defeat this legislation, stop students getting money and pretend you are going to give them an extra billion dollars and then at the next election you do not actually come forth with that billion dollars. Imagine the fury of your local constituents then. I ask the Leader of the Opposition to reconsider and to pass this bill. That is what people who care about education are asking him to do, and there is still time.

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