Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Not only are the opposition climate change deniers; they are also global financial crisis deniers. They do not want to recognise that the financial markets are in turmoil, that there is a global financial crisis plunging other major nations into huge debt and massive restructuring of their financial markets. No, they want to do nothing. They want to sit back on their past glories, fuelled by the resource boom, and do nothing. They want to do nothing when there has been a write-down in revenues in Australia of $210 billion, which is the most extensive write-down confronted by an Australian government since 1931. They would sit back and do nothing in the face of that, and the Australian economy would go down the tube with them. So it is a very happy circumstance that at the last election the Australian population voted in a Labor government that is able to take the strong, necessary and decisive measures to ensure that our economy holds up well in the face of the global financial crisis.

The opposition come in here, deny that there is a financial crisis and do not put up any solutions to what might happen, but instead want to nitpick and try and find every single small problem. They are saying that nothing needs to be done, that the Labor government is spending billions on nothing. Nothing? What we are doing is putting in place in a tiered system through which that first tranche of money went to short-term payments to people and helped prop up the retail sector, the economy and jobs. The intermediate tier is happening right now. That decisive action by the government has allowed, in a short space of time, for those jobs to be rolled out and for those funds to be put into schools. I think Senator Coonan said they were ‘buildings they don’t need’. Schools were neglected for nearly 12 years by the Howard government. They are desperate for funding, desperate for buildings and desperate for upgrades. They are very grateful for this money that is coming into their system at last—at long last. How can you say that schools do not need science and language centres? How can you say that they do not need that money put in? No school that I have been to would say: ‘We do not need any money for buildings. Our local communities do not need jobs in putting up these buildings.’

Finally, there is the funding for long-term infrastructure that was also neglected under the Howard government. It is for roads, rail and ports—the infrastructure that, in opposition, Labor were crying out for during the Howard government’s term and which was ignored. That is what we will spend billions of dollars on. It will not only support jobs and our economy but also build infrastructure for the future that will assist productivity, which went down, down, down during the Howard government’s term. That is what we are doing. What would the opposition do? Probably what Senator McGauran has advised in respect of the wholesale funding guarantee. Against the strong and ongoing advice of the regional banks, who are using the guarantee widely, Senator McGauran’s advice is that the markets will sort it out. That is what he said to the Courier Mail today. He said, ‘Oh, let the market sort it out.’ That is exactly why the popularity of the Rudd Labor government is holding up. It is because people see that the Liberal opposition have no solution whatsoever. They would stand back and let the financial turmoil happening overseas infect Australia. Instead, we have an economy that is now looking forward to a future in which jobs are holding up and in which growth is a possibility—instead of a recession and the kinds of deficits that are hitting major industrialised countries elsewhere. (Time expired)