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

Once again we see in the asking of this question the Leader of the Opposition revealed as a man who wakes up every day having not bothered to carry a conviction from yesterday with him. He has never found a conviction that could not be shed in the interests of political expediency. I can recall, and perhaps the Leader of the Opposition should recall, actions of the Howard government like devoting $10 billion to a water plan. What is very interesting about this comparison is that the Leader of the Opposition says people always do cost-benefit analyses; they always go to the Productivity Commission. His very own shadow minister for broadband, the member for Wentworth, who was the responsible minister at the time, was asked about subjecting that $10 billion to a cost-benefit analysis and the member for Wentworth said, ‘Well, it was not subject to a cost-benefit analysis by the Productivity Commission but there was a lot of analysis done and we published it at the time and defended it.’

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