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

The government is committed to responsible economic management. If the previous government was committed to responsible economic management, it would have done something to invest the $390 billion which it had in extra parameter growth in budget revenues coming off the back of the resources boom in this nation’s long-term infrastructure needs. That would have been setting Australia up for the future.

What would have been setting Australia up for the future as well is as follows: it would have been investing in the productivity needs of the Australian economy for the future; it would have been dealing with the nation’s health and hospital infrastructure for the future; it would have been investing in all the productive capacity and social needs we need for the future; it would have meant using the $390 billion which was realised on the back of the resources boom responsibly and effectively for the future.

Can I say this to the Leader of the Opposition: not everything on planet Earth is the product of his personal wisdom and initiative. I have to say to the Leader of the Opposition that there are measures taken now, responsibly, by this government dealing with the realities of the global financial crisis which are the right course of action for Australia now. If he wishes to deliver the House a message about responsibility, could he walk a few metres that way to the other house, where $4.3 billion worth of revenue—constituent parts of the government’s budget surplus—lies blocked in the Senate, where the Greens are acting responsibly, where Senator Xenophon is acting responsibly, where Senator Fielding is acting responsibly and where the Liberal Party of Australia is acting less responsibly than the government of Cuba.

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