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

I thank the member for Page for her question. We have spent a number of parliamentary weeks now and as parliament has sat it has become clearer and clearer that, whilst the government pursues day after day the national interest, we are seeing the opposition day after day pursue its political interest. We are seeing once again a day of a fear campaign. Today’s theme is a fear campaign about Australian jobs. Yesterday’s campaign was a fear campaign about not enough information. Curiously, two days before we had a fear campaign about price rises, which they said at that stage they could put a dollar figure on, so the inconsistency in these fear campaigns might cause some to pause and reflect. But it is a fear campaign.

Where have we heard these fear campaigns before? Let’s just think back on the short number of parliamentary weeks since the start of this year. We had a fear campaign about the flood levy. For a while the opposition thought that it was onto a winner. I announced the $5.6 billion package to rebuild Queensland, to rebuild the nation, and the opposition was straight out of the blocks saying: ‘Australians will never accept this. This will break the government. It won’t get through the parliament. People will never accept this. They’ll never take it. People should ring talkback. People should complain.’ Of course the opposition was squealing with delight.

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