Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian economy is $1.4 trillion strong. It is a major economy and it is the envy of the world. I do not know whether anyone had the opportunity last night to watch Four Corners. It was a salient program which put into perspective what occurred to the so-called 'Celtic tiger'. It certainly laid a lot of the blame for what occurred in Ireland on a lack of regulation and on a government which took its eye off the economy. We can all succeed when money is pouring in but it takes fiscal and budgetary responsibility to drive productivity. That is not what occurred in Ireland. In fact, it did not occur in many euro based nations and they are paying a price for that now.

Our economy is the envy of the world. You only have to look at recent comments made by the IMF which gave credit to the way the Australian government responded to the global financial crisis. That brings me to a good point. I have heard a lot of criticism of this government from speakers on the other side, but no-one has pointed to the global financial crisis. The reason they have not done so is that they had a view as to how we should respond. With respect to the member for North Sydney, I know he was not shadow Treasurer at the time, but the deputy leader of the Liberal Party was. Her view on the global financial crisis was that we should wait to see what happens. We would find in Hansard that that was their position: we will wait and see what happens. There was nothing about fiscal discipline or supporting a budgetary discipline, nothing about following the advice of Treasury. The global financial crisis in this country was a real test of how people react, not only people who ran the Treasury benches but those who aspire to be there. Those opposite, the so-called 'alternate government', had that position—to wait and see what happens. When it comes to spending money on schools, the Building the Education Revolution stimulus package, all those opposite make sure they go to every school opening but I have never once heard them bagging them out when they get there. Those opposite front up like hypocrites yet they come into this place to oppose spending on schools.

We put $5.7 billion into social housing. I was at a social housing project the other day in New South Wales. We were talking about getting more access into maintenance. In fact, the federal government gave money to every state to increase the maintenance activity on social housing, to relieve some of the social housing pressures, particularly in states such as New South Wales. That created jobs. It gave a lot of young people their first start in a job. It built on tradesmen. Preference was given to organisations which put on apprentices throughout that project. But when they came into this place, what did they do? They opposed that as well.

Two weekends ago we went to Liverpool City Council, which is dominated by members of the conservative party. We supported what they wanted to do under the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Project. We opened one the other day where $1.6 million went into upgrading Liverpool pool—something really good for a local community. There was a bunch of Liberals there and some Labor people as well, of course. The politics of it did not matter; we were doing something for our local community. I had to remind people—I just could not help myself—that those opposite opposed every one of those local and regional projects, putting money into local communities and creating jobs, something they often talk about in their conservative constituencies but never in this place do they support spending in those areas.

If you could define it you would not say it is all care and no responsibility; it has to be feigned care and absolutely no responsibility. Let us not take away from their ability to put politics into everything. They put politics into the way that schools are funded and into doing something with regard to social housing. And they certainly put politics into the process of addressing the global financial crisis through the stimulus regime, which is pretty spectacular because, after all, that was the advice from Treasury. I understand that those opposite see Treasury as being made up of the public servants that they want to cut by another 12,000. They probably have a view about that.

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