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

Let me say again that I am proud, and every member of the government is proud, that through Building the Education Revolution we supported Australian jobs. There is nothing more important to the welfare of Australian families than having parents in work—nothing more important. If we look around our world and look at the circumstances of other economies as they have been hit by the global financial crisis, we see where we could have been. We see where we could have been with an unemployment rate with an 8 in front of the figure or maybe a 9 in front of the figure, with that meaning hundreds of thousands of people unemployed, hundreds of thousands of people at risk of not being able to pay their mortgages or pay their rent, families having their homes repossessed, their mortgages no longer being able to be paid, with everything that means about the future for those families. We were not going to stand by and see that. We understand that the opposition was prepared to stand by and see that but we were not. That is why we provided economic stimulus, why it was targeted and timely, why it was provided to areas of national need like schools to give them the facilities that they will need for the future. Of course these major projects require oversight and as the relevant minister, apart from the oversight built into the program, I also commissioned Brad Orgill to bring his commercial skills to dealing with oversight of the program.

Let us contrast that positive program of action in the nation’s interest and in the interests of Australian families against the alternative advocated by those opposite: don’t provide economic stimulus, let people become unemployed, leave schools without vitally needed infrastructure. All those opposite have ever had their eyes on is the political strategy: call for an Auditor-General report and then when it does not find what they want dismiss it; call for further action and then when the Brad Orgill report does not find what they want dismiss it; try and advocate for a judicial inquiry and then not even bother to come in and call a division and have a vote. We will leave them with their failed political strategy while we get on with the national interest. It is about supporting jobs, it is about supporting families—it is a pity the member for Sturt does not understand that.

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