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

I am responding to the most recent point of order by the Leader of the National Party, who asked the original question. He said that farmers were, in fact, not impacted by any element of last year’s package. He assumes that all the Economic Security Strategy measures—$10.4 billion—went to people in cities. Is he suggesting seriously that none of those payments went to people in rural and regional Australia? Is he suggesting that a COAG package of education and health reforms did not extend itself to rural hospitals or to rural schools? The Leader of the National Party should reflect carefully on the $300 million worth of measures announced by the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government to local authorities, a large slab of which exists in rural and regional Australia. The Leader of the National Party does not have a clue what he is talking about. It is quite clear that the government’s package of measures, both last year and this year, are designed to support the economy, growth and jobs. Each of these packages will be delivered over the spread of time which is indicated by the investment profile attached to each of them. We have a strategy for seeing Australia through this crisis; those opposite seem to content themselves with opportunistic short-term politics. The people of Australia will make up their minds.

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