Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I would say to any of the members of opposite, including the member for Gippsland, who is on the record here suggesting that the councils in Gippsland do not deserve that money and should not be given it—if that is his view—that we have not just acted on the economy. We acted on the environment and water, including the Murray-Darling Basin plan. We introduced a $480 million National Solar Schools Program, to which over 2,200 schools have already signed up. In education, we have the $2.5 billion Trades Training Centres in Schools Program. Since its launch in February, $90 million has already been allocated to 34 lead schools, and it will benefit a total of 96 schools. We have got the digital education revolution, which has delivered more than $116 million for 116,820 new computers to 896 secondary schools, those being identified as most in need. We have delivered half a billion dollars to the Better Universities Renewal Fund.

We have just announced $64 billion in health and hospitals funding over the next five years. In housing affordability, we have increased the first home owners grant, we have established the $512 million Housing Affordability Fund, we have established the First Home Saver Account to help people saving for their first home as well as, of course, announcing $10 billion for the National Affordable Housing Agreement. We have done all this.

In my portfolio of infrastructure, we have not only honoured all of Labor’s pre-election road and rail commitments but done more. We have already established the Building Australia Fund—as long as those opposite do not block it in the Senate. We have established the Major Cities Unit to once again engage the Commonwealth with our cities, the great generators of economic growth in this country.

But what do we have opposite? We have more positions than in the Kama Sutra on any given issue. On the deficit, position 1 of the Leader of the Opposition was ‘it is a failure of economic management’. That is what he said about a temporary deficit at the National Press Club on 24 November. Of course, we know that just this week—indeed, yesterday—he said ‘the deficit should be a last resort’. He is doing the crab walk across, as the Prime Minister has indicated. The opposition has two positions on the impact of the GFC. Position 1 is where the Leader of the Opposition said on 19 October that it was ‘all hype’. The next day he said it was ‘the worst, gravest global financial crisis we have seen since the great Depression’. That position lasted one day.

On predicting the global financial crisis there are at least three positions. On 30 September, the Leader of the Opposition said, ‘Nobody could have seen it coming.’ On 1 October he said that ‘the worst passed three months ago’. It was over—the events of the last weeks would not have been predicted a few months ago. Then position 3 was on 15 October when he said, ‘Regrettably, Mr Rudd’s government missed the warning signs at the beginning of the year.’ Three positions in one month!

On the first home buyer boost, there are four positions. On 14 October, he said that the housing market was softening. On 15 October the shadow minister said that our housing market is actually quite strong. On the same day the Leader of the Opposition said that the grant should be higher. And then the shadow housing minister, on the same day, said, ‘I think the government does have questions to answer about what the First Home Owner Grant for existing dwellings is doing in this package.’ So it was just for new housing. Four positions! He cannot get an answer from his own leader. The opposition have had five positions on the Economic Security Strategy—all over the place—and, of course, multiple positions on their attacks on the Secretary to the Treasury and our economic institutions, let alone the multiple positions they have had on bank deposit guarantees.

This government has a big agenda for the nation. The opposition are simply obsessed with themselves, fighting over the spoils of opposition to see who will be the shadow Treasurer or who will be the spokesperson and who will get to sit further up the queue over there. We can see the dissent and it is characterised most severely by their dissent on Work Choices. We know that, were they to return to the Treasury bench, Work Choices would be back because they have an absolute commitment to those principles. (Time expired)

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