Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton for his question. The Rudd government are indeed delivering our $800 million Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program, the largest local infrastructure program in Australia’s history. We said it would support jobs, we said it would support local economies and we said it would make local communities even better places to live in. So it is no surprise that we have had mayors and community leaders, government members who voted for the package and Independent members who voted for the package lobbying for particular projects in their local community.

But here today we have again heard the opposition say that the $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan is a waste of money—that it will not create a single job and that it will not achieve anything in terms of stimulating the economy. Indeed, when members from that side of the House arrive in Canberra they are pretty consistent on this. The member for Gippsland went out on 26 February and held a little doorstop interview. There he attacked the package and called it a ‘very low quality spend of taxpayers money’. That is pretty consistent with what we have heard today, yesterday and last week—and what we heard during the debate on the Nation Building and Jobs Plan. But they are a bit different when it comes to their electorate. The very same member for Gippsland has written me a letter supporting a $3.25 million proposal from that very program. In this letter he says, and I quote accurately:

In the context of the goals for your economic stimulus package, the project will be labour intensive and stimulate local jobs and the wider economy.

You are right, Member for Gippsland; you are absolutely correct. He says one thing in Canberra and another thing in his electorate.

But he is not alone. Stephen Parry, who I understand is a Liberal senator from Tasmania, has said the following about a project:

Not only is it an environmental initiative but this project would have immediate benefits in addressing the global economic crisis by injecting funds into the municipality for the rollout of the infrastructure.

But it is not just them—I have had letters from the member for Maranoa, the member for La Trobe, the member for Paterson, the member for Canning, the member for Tangney, the member for Bowman and the member for Bradfield. Some have got really carried away—the member for Wannon has written me three letters for three projects. He understands the reality, which is that the Nation Building and Jobs Plan is good for jobs and is good for local economies.

Of course, you have to look at the detail of what they actually do rather than what they say, because they are pretty tricky. They are tricky when it comes to Work Choices, which they cannot break away from; they are tricky when it comes to climate change, where they say they want action but they oppose the CPRS; they were tricky when it came to saying all of last year that they wanted to give extra money to pensioners, but now they are out there bagging the December stimulus package and not associating it with the extra money that went to pensioners, carers and veterans. You have to actually look at what they do. We saw an example of it again today when we had two questions asked relating to the forum that I hold regularly with the member for North Sydney on the Steve Price program. On the first one they did not throw in a quote at all, so you know that that has no credibility. On the second one—

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