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

Fact No. 3 is that, as of the December quarter, when the government was elected, we were experiencing productivity growth which had plummeted to zero. Here’s fact No. 4: if you look at the influx of capital which came into the public revenue as a consequence of the resources boom—hundreds of billions of dollars—and look for a single substantive item whereby those opposite, when they were in government for 12 long years, invested anything of substance in the long-term productive capacity of this economy, you will be hard pressed to find anything. That is as demonstrated by the most recent report by the Business Council of Australia, which the last time I looked was not a subunit of the Australian Labor Party, particularly given their funding activities for various campaigns prior to the last election, I seem to recall.

And fact No. 5 is this. Despite record terms of trade, and despite the fact that these terms of trade have now been registered for something in the vicinity of five years, what we have seen is something like 65 consecutive monthly trade deficits, a current account deficit running at seven per cent and a foreign debt which has ballooned out by a factor of three to $530 billion—and those opposite stand at the dispatch box and say that they handed the economy to the incoming government of Australia in perfect order. You’ve got to be dreaming!

See this speech in context