Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If you are behind the wheel of an economy that was set up by the profound economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating government, there is no great surprise that you reap the benefits. But what was done with those benefits? Nothing. A Labor government came in, and, in a relatively short time—too short—introduced reforms to do with some of the biggest challenges facing this country, reforms such as the NDIS, the NBN, an economy-wide program to tackle climate change, and needs based funding.

Now we have a coalition government that pretends that it was always on board with those things and that those things were always going to happen—that is rubbish. Then it pretends that but for their excellent administrative capacity and funding know-how those things would not have happened—that is rubbish too. Those challenges are being settled, and they are going to take a Labor government to put them right, but there are further challenges ahead, and we cannot keep having this misconception perpetrated upon the Australian public.

There are great challenges in this nation. Labor does what it can, and has done a remarkable job in recent times of tackling some of those enormous areas. But we cannot have the government spend four, five or six years spinning wheels and indulging in political game playing, trying to shark the credit for the things that Labor governments have done and muddying the waters with facile and insubstantial arguments about money. We need to focus on the big picture. I am sorry that this budget is more smoke and mirrors than it could have been.

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