Kate Lundy (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to make a contribution to this debate for no other reason than that I have been motivated by Senator Joyce to expose the most ridiculous representation of the facts that I have heard for an extremely long time. In fact, the investments that Labor is making to stimulate the economy are precisely the kinds of investments that we need to provide for growth opportunities in the future. They are precisely the kinds of investment opportunities that the Howard government neglected to make for 13 years in government.

I remember on so many occasions standing on the other side of this chamber calling on the former government to account for making cuts to our education system, cuts to our capacity to invest in research and development, cuts to our capacity to service the infrastructure needed to allow our economy to make the best use of the growth around at the time. I challenge those senators opposite to come in here and talk about capacity constraints. They are guilty of making those constraints through that period of neglect under the former Howard government. It is a disgrace. It is a problem that the Labor government inherited. It is a problem we knew we would inherit. It is a problem we took to the Australian people and the Australian people said, ‘We need the Labor government to fix this problem.’ It was part of our platform coming into office that we would make these investments in the way necessary.

No-one predicted at that time what was going to happen to the global economy. Since we were elected, circumstances have changed completely. We now find ourselves in the grip of a global recession, resulting in significant downward revisions to tax receipts. As we know, some two-thirds of the projected deficit is because of that reduction in revenues. We find ourselves in an extraordinary situation. What does a Labor government do? A Labor government stands up and takes responsibility for jobs in this country and for opportunities to provide growth through the economic recession. We know what the Liberal Party would do. We know that they have no clue at all. They will not stand up on the other side and say what measures they would pull out of this budget. Malcolm Turnbull said not that long ago, indeed in February this year, that he would spend up to $177 billion—barely 10 per cent less than what we are spending.

Now the opposition have the audacity to come into this chamber and criticise Labor for the level of debt. This opposition are all over the place and they know it. They are embarrassed by it. They have nowhere to go. Labor are setting a new standard in proactive policy decision making in Australia that will save jobs and buffer this country through a critical and difficult period, and we will do it in such a way that will see us emerge stronger than ever from this crisis. I would like to go to those issues now.

The debt that we carry as a proportion of our GDP is far less than for comparative developed nations. The other side of the chamber do not like to hear that fact, in fact they have gone a little quiet because they know it is the truth. They know that we are able to manage this debt quite effectively. We know that the types of investments Labor are making to stimulate the economy with the two stimulus packages, and now an excellent budget package to complement that, are about creating jobs, stimulating building and construction, and stimulating investment in research and development, higher education and health infrastructure. All of these measures will have the effect of not only creating economic activity right now when we need it most but also building capacity in all things that will serve this nation well as we emerge from this recession. I would like to mention a couple of those matters specifically because they are critically important.

In direct contradiction to the claims made by Senator Joyce just before, we are investing in hard infrastructure to remove the capacity constraints—in roads, in ports and in rail. We are doing that because for 13 years the Howard government neglected to do that despite having a budget surplus. We have also delivered the promised tax cuts and, through previous stimulus packages, $900 to eligible families. Why? Because that keeps the economy ticking. It makes sense. A responsible government uses the policy tools available to it to take care of the society it represents, and that is exactly what the federal Labor government are doing. Why? Because we care and the coalition parties do not. To come in here and say that they would not take this action, means that they would say—