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

Nonsense? I say that those opposite are walking two sides of the street. On the question of the Building the Education Revolution program, those opposite have one responsibility if they are being fair dinkum: in each electorate across the Australia, they must itemise each one of the schools at which they will cease the construction program. Otherwise, the Leader of the Opposition’s statement about halting stimulus payments across the country is revealed for what it is: a piece of utterly fraudulent politics. That is the challenge for those opposite. If you are going to say this in Canberra, do it at the local level. Every local newspaper editor will chase you down and ask which schools you will stop funding, which of those where construction has not started will you pull the plug on and how many tradies will you throw out of work.

I go back again to the School of St Luke the Evangelist. I spoke to the local builder, who said to me that, were it not for this program, he and so many other people who worked on it—up to 30 subbies on a given day—would have had no work last year. Why do you think that this country—unique among the major advanced economies—emerged from the global economic crisis with positive growth, as the only economy not to go into recession and as the only economy to continue to generate high levels of employment, with an unemployment level about half of what we see in Europe and the United States? The answer lies in getting on with the business of implementing stimulus projects on the ground, ones that have provided real and tangible returns for the kids of the 21st century. That is why the government unapologetically supports this program.

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