Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why has the Prime Minister wasted $23 billion on his cash splashes before checking that the government has the funds to pay for important infrastructure projects? Hasn’t the Prime Minister, by borrowing $23 billion and simply giving it away, made matters worse and increased the risk of a Rudd recession?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. I would draw his attention to the fact that over the 12 years in which the Liberal Party were in office, their great conspicuous failure was to not invest in the nation’s infrastructure—a matter which was the subject of conspicuous and consistent reports from a range of agencies over the period of their tenure in office. As a result, when we moved to the various warnings which were delivered in the last several years by the Reserve Bank and others about inflationary pressures in the economy, they pointed to two things: inadequate investment in infrastructure and infrastructure bottlenecks on the one hand—

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Costello interjecting

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is good to see that the member for Higgins has leapt back into action today. Three days of self-discipline were too much for the member for Higgins, but we come to day 4 and he is back up the front.

Then you have got the other thing which was pointed to, which was the underinvestment in skills. If you look at the overall need for productivity performance in the economy, you need to be investing in infrastructure and investing in skills, because the long-term economic mission of the government—and it should be of the nation—is to ensure that we are turbocharging long-term productivity growth. That is why, prior to the election, we committed ourselves to significant infrastructure investment. That is why, prior to the election, we committed ourselves to building an education revolution. These two enterprises come together with one objective: boosting long-term productivity growth.

The honourable member refers to the infrastructure funds which we have dedicated for this purpose. Can I again draw the attention of the nation to the double standards of the opposition. Each of these infrastructure funds was voted against, in this parliament, by those opposite. They have opposed nation building, they have opposed economic stimulus, they have opposed infrastructure investment, and they stand here at the dispatch box today and pretend that they are concerned about the above. This is a political strategy designed to take political advantage of a global economic crisis. This government is prosecuting an economic strategy in order to cushion the impact of that crisis on Australian families and on jobs.