Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

the six largest deficits in our history, debt growing and growing and growing, and our country paying $1 billion a month every single month just to pay the interest on Labor's debt. It was not just the fiscal ineptitude; it was the utter administrative incompetence of members opposite. They spent $2.5 billion putting pink batts into people's roofs. That killed people. And then they spent the money pulling them out. They spent more than $17 billion on overpriced school halls. They promised to spend $43 billion on a National Broadband Network that was going nowhere fast. Thanks to the stewardship of the member for Wentworth, the Minister for Communications, finally the National Broadband Network is rolling out affordably, on budget and on a revised timetable.

This is a government which is getting on with the job for which it was elected. We promised to stop the boats—they have stopped. We promised to repeal the carbon tax—that is gone. We promised to get rid of the mining tax—that has gone too. We promised to get on with building roads—that is happening, except in states where the Labor government has decided that it does not want new roads. We are getting on with the business of getting our budget back under control.

Members opposite have no plan for the future. They have absolutely no plan for the future. All they have is a long litany of complaints. It is an absolute betrayal. It is a betrayal of our country. It is a betrayal of the kind of decent Labor leaders that members opposite have had in the past, who actually believed in our country and would not just talk about their beliefs—they would actually get on with the kind of reforms that our country needed.

The Leader of the Opposition was asked what his solutions were, and all he could say was a whole lot of things that he would not do. We are prepared to do things. We are prepared to do the tough things, the difficult but necessary things that our country needs if our children and our grandchildren are to enjoy the kind of prosperity and the kind of standard of living that they deserve and which we inherited. This government is determined to ensure that this generation is as good to future generations as previous generations were good to us. We are not going to sell out the future the way members opposite did when they were in government just 18 months ago.

Let's look at what this government has actually delivered: 213,000 jobs in our first calendar year. The Leader of the Opposition says that we are selling out working people. I tell you what: there are more working people now, thanks to this government. Jobs growth now is three times what it was in the last year of the former government. Economic growth is 2.7 per cent, up from 1.9 per cent a year ago. Housing starts are at near record levels—they are 10 per cent higher than they were a year ago. Business registrations are at an all-time record.

The Leader of the Opposition talks about climate change. We will deliver a 12 per cent cut in our emissions on 2005 levels by 2020. We will deliver, on a per capita basis, a 30 per cent cut in emissions by 2020, because we do not just talk about climate change; we do what is necessary. We put the direct action measures that are necessary in place to actually deliver a cut in emissions.

When it comes to Medicare, we are prepared to face up to the reality. It cost us $8 billion a decade ago. It is costing us $20 billion today. It will cost us $34 billion in a decade's time. We are prepared to work with the medical profession of this country to come up with sustainable and lasting reforms.

Members opposite have one strategy for economic growth: it is to spend money they do not have ; it is to waste our children's and our grandchildren's money on things like pink batts, school halls and an NBN that was never getting anywhere fast under Labor. The Leader of the Opposition asks, 'What about getting on with building submarines?' The Leader of the Opposition's contribution to the submarine debate was to engage in cheap, racist ranting against the people of Japan. That was the Leader of the Opposition's contribution, just like he engaged in cheap, xenophobic ranting against foreign workers with his anti-457 campaign when he was in government just a few years ago.

See this speech in context