Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. You have to give the Leader of the Opposition this: once he is told a slogan by a focus group, he never deviates from it—not once, not ever. He is driven by focus groups every day of the week, with his three-word slogans. When he is not driven by focus groups, with his three-word slogans, he is trying to work out how to put the Liberal Party’s political interests in front of the national interest. He is trying to find out what he can wreck next. Since the election he has shown all of the political maturity of a two-year-old. It is about time he got over it and actually started contributing to national debates in a responsible way.

Whilst the Leader of the Opposition’s tantrum continues, on this side of the House we will continue to deliver responsible government. The Leader of the Opposition asked me what that is about, clearly having no idea himself what responsible government could possibly be about, having never acted in a responsible way when he was in government. Let me take this opportunity to explain it to him. It is about a strong economy. It is about giving Australians the benefits and dignity of work. I was very proud last week to see the unemployment statistics and to see that we have created 375,000 jobs. That is something that we celebrate on this side of the House. It is something that we on this side of the House contributed to with our timely economic stimulus package, while the Leader of the Opposition was content to see Australians thrown out of work and thrown out of their homes. We will bring the budget to surplus in 2012-13. We did not follow the Leader of the Opposition down the path of an $11 billion black hole—not for us that irresponsibility. We had our promises properly costed and we will bring the budget to surplus in 2012-13.

We are working on measures that will lift the productivity of our economy. Our economy has emerged strong from the global financial crisis but we need continuing reform, investment in skills, investment in infrastructure and moves to increase the participation rate so that we can absolutely maximise this opportunity we have now, coming so strongly out of the global financial crisis. We are readying our economy for the challenges of the future: building the National Broadband Network, dealing with pricing carbon and tackling climate change. At the same time, we are governing for all Australians. We do not want Australians left behind because they lack a quality education or quality health services. The reality is that we inherited from the Leader of the Opposition a health system groaning under the weight of his cuts, and we are now preparing it for the future. We inherited an education system presided over by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition where no-one cared about disadvantage and no-one cared about children being left behind, and we are systematically fixing that. At the same time, we continue to make sure that Australia’s voice is heard in the councils of the world. We continue to make sure that our nation is safe and strong, and there is no more important engagement in that than the successful prosecution of our mission in Afghanistan. The Leader of the Opposition asked me: ‘What does this government stand for?’ We stand for all of that. He stands for wrecking and three-word slogans.

See this speech in context