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Monday, 27 February 2012
Page: 796

Senator PRATT (Western Australia) (15:19): I am very proud of this government's record, both under Kevin Rudd and under Prime Minister Julia Gillard. We have much to be proud of, and Senator Joyce should not be lecturing us on stability, given his track record. A government is not a popularity contest. It is about making the right decisions in government for the national interest and for the Australian people, and that is something that this Labor government consistently does. We are a government that have been able to make the hard decisions—decisions in the national interest, in the interests of Australian families and in the interests of Australian jobs. We have a strong and functioning government. We have the many hundreds of bills that have been passed—major reforms that have passed the House of Representatives and indeed this chamber. We have a strong and effective government, a government that is getting on with governing and that has wheels that have kept turning.

We also have plans for the future. We have a strong Prime Minister. We have a committed and tough PM, and we have a big agenda. No. 1 at the top of our agenda, our top priority, is managing our economy. It is about giving working people a fair share of our nation's mineral resources. It is about getting our nation ready for the future—for the new economy that we know is emerging. They are difficult decisions because they are difficult things to balance, but we are managing the economy for working people and for jobs—just as we did during the global financial crisis under Kevin Rudd. Now, as you can also clearly see, we are doing it in the manufacturing and auto industries, unlike those opposite. We as a government will maintain our disciplined fiscal strategy. It is about delivering a budget surplus in 2012-13, and those opposite have no plan for the future in this regard. They have a $70 billion black hole, and they cannot deliver a budget surplus for this nation. Labor, on the other hand, is able to build on the fact that, for the first time in Australia's history, we have joined an elite group of countries which hold a AAA credit rating from all three global rating agencies. These are important things for our national interest.

The cost of living for Australian families is something that I and others on this side of this chamber are resolutely focused on. It is a key issue for Australian families, and we are delivering the policies that underpin—

Senator Abetz: Giving them a carbon tax—that'll help!

Senator PRATT: A carbon tax? What would those opposite have us do?

Senator Abetz: Remove it.

Senator PRATT: They might have us remove a carbon tax, but at what cost?

Opposition senators interjecting—

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order on my left!

Senator PRATT: At the cost of the tax cuts that Australians deserve, at the cost of the fairness that we want to deliver in the tax system to Australian families, at the cost of Australians with a disability, who deserve that disability insurance scheme, at the cost of our health and hospital system, at the cost of acting on climate change and at the cost of our education system—all things that we have done in the national interest.

What would those opposite have done during the global financial crisis? Would they have just cut spending? There are terribly contradictory things out there in relation to their agenda. Would they have supported schools around the nation to create jobs? I think that was an incredibly smart thing to do. What we saw during Building the Education Revolution was projects of a scale that meant we could roll them out and create jobs quickly. Had we invested it in large infrastructure, we would not have been able to roll out and create those jobs as quickly. But what we have seen is 9,000 schools around the country benefiting from what was an economic calamity, and we created hundreds of thousands of jobs around the country. This government is committed to infrastructure in public transport, unlike those opposite. (Time expired)