Deborah O'Neill (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Maybe they have not heard yet because all they are hearing on the media of this country is the negative carping of those opposite. We have to tell our positive story—and it is a positive story. It is an investment in our country. It is an investment in our future. We have an agenda and we are delivering. I welcome the fact that 76 per cent of Australians are keen on Australia’s health reforms. I also take the opportunity to mention that, in addition to health reforms, we have plenty more to deliver. But critically for the people of Robertson and critically for regional Australia we need to talk about the infrastructure agenda. The Gillard government, with a vision for the future, are committed to delivering. We have to clean up after more than a decade of neglect. Infrastructure bottlenecks were the hallmark of the Howard government’s failure to invest, failure to have a vision for this country and failure to get on with the job of building a positive future.

We are making sure that we have key achievements in many areas but nothing more clearly indicates the difference between those opposite and the visionary agenda that we have here on the government benches than the National Broadband Network. It is a vision for the entire country. It is not for some city slickers or for some country people. It is not either/or; it is an and/and. It is for all Australians. It starts from our efforts right here on the government benches pushing forward with a vision for what Australians might be capable of as we give them a pathway to the future. We are replacing core infrastructure. We will build along the pathway an opportunity for many other people to provide a range of services, so that Australians will get a much better deal when they sign up to high-speed quality internet access for their kids. All of a sudden they will have this fantastic optical fibre cabling to their place—it is going to make a big difference.

This country has a future; a future which is possible because we have a healthy economy delivered by a Labor government. When things got tough, we got on with the job. We rolled up our sleeves. We delivered across the entire nation an investment in infrastructure for the kids in our schools and an investment in jobs for every community that benefited from the Building the Education Revolution.

Despite the whingeing of those opposite in this place, they know that their communities back home—real Australians—are in real schools. They are in real school halls and real classrooms doing real learning and gathering together learning as communities. They are learning about their future, they are believing in their future and they are in buildings ready to last into the future, not in the decaying infrastructure that would still be there if those opposite were still in charge of this country.

We have a vision for Australia’s future and that is why the Australian people elected us and not those on the other side. We are getting on with delivering an enabling agenda, a positive and visionary agenda. We will do it for the Australian people, despite the carping negativity, the whingeing, the fear mongering and the wrecking ball mentality of those opposite.

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