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

To the member for Goldstein, who may or may not have listened to the answer to the question for the member for Indi, there are things called facts. I know they are always inconvenient for the opposition, and I know that they never buttress the opposition's fear campaign. I know that therefore the opposition lives in denial of them, and I know therefore that the opposition criticises, hounds and seeks to destroy anybody who raises the facts and any expert who ventures an opposition. That is all part of their relentless, destructive, aggressive negativity, and we see it every day.

But people of reason know that there are things called facts, and the facts matter—like the facts on business investment in our nation. The member for Goldstein, who is seeking to be a senior economic spokesperson in a government, should acquaint himself with these facts. We have a growing economy. We have business investment as a percentage of GDP at a very high point—the highest point in 40 years. We have reached that with the government's policy settings, which have been about keeping the Australian economy strong, making sure we came out of the global financial crisis without a recession and with Australians in work, and, in this phase of economic change in our region, seeking to maximise the jobs and opportunities that come from this period of economic change.

And that does mean that we have to be ready for the future. That does mean that we need to have a cleaner energy economy, and that is why we have put a price on carbon. It does mean that we will need the infrastructure of the future, which is why infrastructure investments are at a record level, and we are rolling out the National Broadband Network. It does mean that we will need the skills of the future, which is why there is nothing more precious to us than what is happening in our education system—whether it is early childhood education, school skills or universities—and we are not done yet on making sure that Australians have got the best of future opportunities. It is about making sure, as our region grows and changes and is home to more middle-class people than any other part of the world, that we get the benefit of those opportunities: legal services, health services, education services and food industry services—and the list goes on. This is the economic future—

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