James Bidgood (Dawson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know I don’t look it. Thank you, I appreciate it. But I can honestly say to you that there are many in my generation who have come up through the trades who are having to reskill. This legislation helps that happen. We have a resource of over-40s who want to get into new trades or perhaps new businesses and they need skilling up. But they need a helping hand. We on this side of politics believe the role of government is to give people that helping hand up—not to push them down. That is what we intend to do, and that is what is behind this investment in reskilling people. And it is for giving people, particularly businesses, the opportunity to save apprenticeships where the bottom line is perhaps tight in these extreme global economic conditions in which we live. They are conditions that ultimately are global and because they are global they are beyond our control.

But we stand in a good position. We stand with the knowledge of the storm that is coming. We can be wise and we can prepare, and that is what we are doing through this legislation—we are preparing for the future. There will be some hard months ahead; there is no question about that, and everybody is real enough to acknowledge that. But I can tell you that this is the right way forward. This is the way to stimulate the economy and the way to create and save jobs. And if jobs do perhaps become redundant we will reskill and retrain. We do not believe that we should allow unemployment to rise beyond control because when unemployment rises beyond control families hurt and suffer and children hurt and suffer.

We have to look after families in this nation and we have to look after individuals in this nation. If there is one thing that gives a human being purpose, it is to contribute to society through work. Some people, when they cannot find paid work, are only too glad to move into volunteer work, because it is in human nature to work and to contribute to community and society in order to make the world—and their own lives in the process—a much better place.

The Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government has been provided with $2.5 million to establish Infrastructure Australia to ensure that there is genuine rigour and accountability in infrastructure spending. This is so that this government will be transparent and not be accused of regional rorts or anything like that. We are open to accountability, and this money helps provide that accountability, because accountability is important and infrastructure is for the long term—not the short term. That infrastructure will be here long after most of us have moved on from this place.

The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research will be provided with $15.2 million to introduce the Enterprise Connect program, which will replace the previous government’s Australian Industry Productivity Centres. I referred earlier to the Mackay Mining Innovation Skills Centre, which will be a key touchstone for industry to bring together various businesses in the mining sector to look at ways of increasing productivity through innovation.

The government are totally focused on stimulating the economy. For example, we are building 20,000 units of homes in the next two years. We made a commitment to build 40,000 homes by 2020. Stimulation for the building industry is fantastic, and I can honestly report that my phone at my electoral office has not stopped ringing from builders in the construction industry saying, ‘How do we get on board with this? We want a part of this. How can we do that?’ Even yesterday, on my mobile phone, I received a call from a developer saying, ‘We want to be part of this. This is fantastic.’

It is fair to say that there is broad consensus among the business community and amongst tradespeople that this is the right way to go; this is going to save businesses in the construction industry. The insulation of 2.2 million homes is going to create jobs, and a vast majority of that insulation will be Australian made. Seventy per cent of the solar hot water systems will be made here in Australia. This will create work; it will create greener homes which will have less carbon footprint. It has been worked out that between now and 2020 the amount of carbon saved from going into the atmosphere will be in the region of 49 million tonnes. That is equivalent to taking one million cars off the road. That is good, and through that we fulfil our Kyoto agreement. This is smart, because this is going to happen in two years. This is very smart indeed.

Here we are, insulating homes, making them energy efficient, creating work through that, reducing the carbon footprint, fulfilling the Kyoto agreement, building 20,000 homes in two years—those will be for low-income people and the homeless. That is a core Labor commitment, a fundamental belief. Give children an education. Give children good health. Give children a good basic home. That is what the Labor Party has always been about. That is a core fundamental belief, and we, the Rudd Labor government, are delivering on our true beliefs.

The previous speaker, the member for Mackellar, gave a sort of critique and said that capitalism has not failed and the market did not fail; rather, it was the responsibility of the American administrations of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. She seems to have forgotten that for the last eight years President Bush was running the country. He, obviously, from her assessment, had no influence whatsoever. She talks as if someone waved a magic wand and things just suddenly went wrong—because of state intervention, supposedly. This is absolute Disneyland politics, because the reality is she did not address the CEOs who were paying themselves massive bonuses. I refer to the Lehman Brothers CEO. After eight years of running the bank, he busted the bank and walked away with over US$450 million. I think there needs to be some accountability for that. I personally find it ethically unacceptable to receive $450 million for sending a bank broke. That is not good stewardship of anybody’s money. There needs to be some serious accountability right now across the world of all the CEOs of all the banks.

In conclusion, I truly do believe this is the right way forward, the right stimulus and the right package to save our nation from huge unemployment queues. The opposition voted against this package, but without it that would have been the result. I commend these bills to the House.

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