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

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his very widely-drawn question. I say to the Leader of the Opposition that it is time to stop being stranded as human history marches past you. We could not have a better example of that than we have in this parliament today and into tonight. This parliament is poised to deliver the biggest micro-economic reform agenda in telecommunications that this nation has ever seen—a reform agenda 30 years in the making, a reform agenda actually based on competition policy. Competition—a word that used to mean something to the Liberal Party. Instead of just accepting that his strategy of wrecking and demolition has been exposed to all the world for what it is, instead of just accepting that in his negativity the Leader of the Opposition has lost, he is forcing this parliament into the sham of sitting through the night and tomorrow when he knows that this ends in victory for those who believe in the National Broadband Network and in defeat for the Leader of the Opposition and his negativity. In my answering this question, the Leader of the Opposition adds yet again to his tidal wave of negativity and his lack of vision for the future. What does the Leader of the Opposition stand for except ‘Stop this’, ‘End that’ and ‘Wreck the other’? Is he a man who has ever had a positive idea or plan for the nation’s future?

In this parliament today we are seeing on display the contest in Australian politics and the battle of ideas about this nation’s future: one side of the parliament, aided and facilitated by those who have got a vision for the country, delivering a transformative technology, the National Broadband Network; and the bitter and defeated, mired in their negativity, as human history marches past them. The Liberal Party, the party of the past; the Labor Party, delivering the technology of the future.

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