Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

How dare they do that! A job! The most interesting part, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that your own minister suggested to one of our ministers that it was a good idea to fund appropriate programs to put people into jobs.

If you want to know a premier of a state who has been left in a diabolical position, I name Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, which have all been left in most difficult fiscal positions in their budgets. They come in and they have to make a change. And you want to talk about those premiers today. Why don't you talk about the people that put them in the position where the state governments have to react in such a way? If you want your pet projects up, if you want your hospitals funded properly, if you want the new roads that need to be done right across this nation, and if they are the responsibility of the states, do not allow Labor governments to destroy the financial positions of those states until they hand them over to a Liberal-National coalition to fix the problem, to introduce programs into TAFE colleges right across Victoria that will supply—what?—jobs: jobs for people. They supply more apprenticeships for apprentices, although the downturn that is creeping across the nation is affecting the opportunities for those apprentices.

You know, I reckon every member of parliament in this place is feeling that. I reckon every member of parliament in this place is getting a bit of a message about what is going on out in their communities. We are all a bit tentative at the moment because our builders' phones have stopped ringing; our electricians' phones have stopped ringing—

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