Bernie Ripoll (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just heard a comment from a member of the opposition that it is a bad package. What do they mean by that? Is it a bad package because they do not like the size of it or is it a bad package because there are parts of it that they do not particularly support? I will touch on both of those areas. But even if it were a bad package—and I do not believe it is—the opposition voted against it. They voted against schools, they voted against jobs, they voted against families and they voted against pensioners at the very same time that they were out there saying: ‘More, more, more; we need more money for schools, more money for roads and more money for jobs. Why isn’t the government doing something?’ Well, the government is doing something, and what it is doing it has done in two tranches—two very significant phases. In fact everything we have done has an underpinning theme. That underpinning theme has been jobs, jobs, jobs: job security, job maintenance and job creation.

We have heard all sorts of rhetoric in the House about job loss numbers, job creation numbers, how many jobs were created before and after and all the rest of it. The reality is that we need to invest if we are going to create jobs and sustain and maintain jobs or at least wash away the worst impacts of the global financial crisis.

Let me start by first dealing with the global financial crisis and what took us to the place that we are at today, which is of critical importance and should be of critical importance to everybody in this House and to all Australians. Some time ago a number of organisations—I will just mention Lehman Brothers and perhaps some companies in Australia, including Storm Financial and a whole range of others—particularly in America saw a collapse. That led to other countries falling into similar circumstances, which created, for want of a full explanation, a global financial crisis. Australia is not immune. Australia has not been left out of things of a global nature that have happened.

While our economy is resisting—I think we will all agree—the worst impacts and effects, it is still being dragged down like other economies. We are not as badly off as the United States of America and the position they find themselves in, either in terms of debt, or in terms of trying to manage the global financial crisis in their own country or trying to manage job losses. So we are not as bad as the United States. We are not as bad as Great Britain. In London we are seeing massive job losses—we are seeing a collapse of financial services sector jobs. We are nowhere near as bad as that.

We are nowhere near as bad as Europe. In Europe we are seeing some of the worst effects of the global financial crisis. And we are nowhere near as bad as Japan, where, very unfortunately they have slipped from a recession to a depression. I would say very clearly and confidently that the reason that Australia is managing to stave off the absolute worst impacts and effects of the global financial crisis is the strong, decisive, quick and considered action that the Rudd government is taking in terms of ameliorating those impacts.

We not do that to make ourselves feel good. We do not do that because we are going to get a pat on the back. We are doing that in the national interest because it is our responsibility. It is our job; it is something we must do. It is something we need to do to protect families, to protect jobs, to make sure that we still have an economy in six months time, in nine months time or in 12 months time. So we come into this place and we hear the hollow, shallow rhetoric that we get from members who are not quite sure how they should deal with this. They are caught, they are trapped. They are trapped deep down, knowing they ought to be supporting what we are doing. Even if they do not agree with all of it, that does not really matter. They know the package is needed. As I said earlier, if it is a disagreement about the size of the package, then tell us the size of your package. Is it $42 billion or $40 billion or $25 billion? What should it be? We are not getting that, but we can do the sums pretty quick—

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