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

Oh! Now they want to hop onto the stimulus bandwagon! That brings us back to that core mathematical question: ‘How much stimulus do you want and how much do you not want?’ Last time I looked, you wanted 95 per cent, maybe 90 per cent—it depends how the factional deliberations are going within the Liberal Party on a given day. But, if we had followed the advice of those opposite, which was not to engage in early, decisive, strong action through stimulus, the result would have been that we would now be in the depths of recession with unemployment going through the roof. But, having got that so fundamentally wrong, what do they now say? ‘Pull the rug from under recovery and pull back on the stimulus’—which all these other institutions are urging this government to continue with.

I say to those opposite, whether it is on the economy or other matters of public policy, what we see is a Liberal Party increasingly opportunist, out of touch, short term and—I have got to say—on the question of economic strategy, fundamentally lacking in judgment. It is that lack of judgment that we have seen so conspicuously on the part of the Leader of the Opposition on so many matters in recent times. Let us get on with the business of an Australian economic recovery.

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