Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is exactly right, Senator Polley. We cannot forget emails because emails are very important pieces of information. In fact, to receive an email you need a computer, and to be able to work a computer you need to learn how. Here are we, offering computers to students in schools, and those on that side knock them back, saying: ‘No, no, no. We don’t agree with that. We don’t think that should happen.’ You cannot trust those on the other side. The base hypocrisy of them when they come in here! They are happy to be there at the opening of extensions to schools or whatever. They are happy to come along and get in the photo shoots. I know of opposition members in the other place who have taken the credit for getting the funding. They have actually put it into newsletters. You cannot trust the Liberal Party.

The Rudd government will deliver; the Rudd government is delivering. The opposition had 12 years, as I said, and did nothing. They just cannot live with the fact that they are in opposition and we are in government. They cannot deal with it, so they want to rewrite everything and have their own alternative history. It would make really great reading if it was not so farcical. The government’s economic stimulus plan has worked. The Australian economy has worked well over the last 12 months. In fact, I wonder where we would be if the government had not taken that action. The Rudd government acted decisively and very, very quickly.

Those opposite, particularly in the Senate, are like Senate vandals. They just want to sabotage everything. They want to sabotage the economic and fiscal strategy that the Rudd government put up, which was designed to save Australia from the worst part of the global financial crisis. We have done that. We have kept Australians in jobs. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been given to people because of Building the Education Revolution. Those on the other side are a risk to our economy because they are so negative. They are just going to block everything. They just want to bring in new big, fat taxes. Mr Abbott wants to bring in a big, fat tax, and that is only the beginning. I think it took him 34 days to change his mind on that. They have a relentlessly negative approach. As I said, they are in opposition and they just oppose for opposition’s sake. Let us talk about Mr Abbott and his big, fat tax.