Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You, Senator Bernardi, through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, are being very mischievous, as are your colleagues, in your comments.

The week before last I had the privilege of being in that wonderful part of Australia called the Pilbara—with which you, Mr Acting Deputy President Lightfoot, are very familiar. The Pilbara has generated bucketloads of wealth for this country. No less than $28 billion came out of the federal seat of Kalgoorlie in royalties to Canberra for the year 2005-06. Where did that money go? It did not go back into the Pilbara in infrastructure, whether it be hard or soft. I take my hat off to the Prime Minister, Mr Rudd, in committing to Infrastructure Australia to fix up that gross situation we found ourselves in as a country in greatly underinvesting in our infrastructure. Senator Bernardi and senators opposite have the audacity to sit there and belittle the Rudd Labor government and the budget that was delivered last night by the Treasurer. I take my hat off to the Treasurer. What a wonderful budget! I praise the Treasurer. It has been left up to the Rudd Labor government to fix up the misdemeanours of 12 years of Howard conservative rule, of throwing money at anything that would get them through to the next election.