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Julia Gillard in her glass house - rewriting history and throwing stones

By Julie Bishop - posted Thursday, 11 April 2013


Last weekend Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave a speech at the Boao Forum in China.

The audience included President Xi Jinping and other world leaders. I was present along with a delegation of Australian business leaders.

While it was not entirely unexpected, it was disappointing all the same to hear the Prime Minister claim total ownership of the Australia - China relationship.

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She lavished praise on the efforts of the Whitlam and Hawke governments, as well as her own, but studiously ignored the contribution of the Howard Government, or indeed any other government, to the current strength of the bilateral relationship.

It was a graceless attempt at rewriting history, which would otherwise show that China has been a priority for every Australian government for decades.

The Howard Government nurtured and maintained a constructive, predictable and strong relationship with China, based on mutual respect.

Major milestones included the establishment of the first ever ministerial level human rights dialogue with China, the commencement of negotiations for a free trade agreement in 2005 (since stalled under this government), an exponential increase in trade including the signing of major gas contracts, and the historic visit of President Hu Jintao in 2003 when he addressed a joint sitting of the Parliament.

Such was our standing at that time that the Chinese President chose Australia for his first official overseas visit after taking office.

Her speech should have come as no surprise sadly, for on the eve of her visit to China, Prime Minister Gillard also accused the Howard government of squandering taxation revenue and wasting the proceeds of the mining boom.

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This is pretty rich, given that the Labor Government inherited from the Howard government the best set of national accounts of any incoming government in living memory.

It does take chutzpah on a grand scale for Julia Gillard to accuse other governments of wasting money on quick fixes and engaging in excessive spending.

With her government on track to deliver yet another massive budget deficit - its fifth in as many years and cumulatively the biggest budget deficits ever recorded - her hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Having taken net government debt from zero to around $170 billion, and with gross government debt now nearing $300 billion, all within a period that has seen the highest terms of trade on record, Julia Gillard is in no position to lecture others on fiscal restraint.

The overpriced school halls program, the home insulation fiasco, the cost blowouts in her failed border protection policies and the massive cost overruns in the broadband network are only a handful of the many examples of Labor's waste and mismanagement.

The respective approaches to school building programs under the former Coalition Government compared with the Labor Government is instructive.

The Howard government program of just over $1 billion provided partial funding for school infrastructure in grants of up to $150,000 per school.

Schools were required to demonstrate that proposed projects had the support of the community through fund-raising and other activities.

The types of project were at the discretion of each school and ranged from computer laboratories, shade cloth for playgrounds, bicycle sheds, assembly halls, covered learning areas and the like.

Schools worked in conjunction with the relevant state education authority to manage the projects which were approved by independent assessment panels in each state, comprising representatives from state government, parents and teachers.

This ensured that local management achieved the best possible value for money.

The contrast with the $16 billion "Building the Education Revolution" administered by then Minister for Education Julia Gillard could not be more stark.

While some stimulus spending was required in 2008 this program was an inexcusable extravaganza of central planning and waste.

With virtually no consultation with school communities, numerous schools complained of having foisted upon them one-size-fits-all buildings that they did not require.

Schools played no role in the management of their projects, which led to hundreds of examples of building contractors charging extortionate amounts.

In some schools, buildings cost more than $1 million, yet local contractors claimed they could have constructed them for one fifth or less of the price. The waste ran into the billions.

In her attack on the Howard Government, Julia Gillard also neglected to mention that the Howard Government had to find the funds to pay down the $96 billion debt inherited from the Keating Labor government.

She also failed to acknowledge the $70 billion placed in a Future Fund set up so that future generations of taxpayers did not have to meet the superannuation liabilities of public servants.

Also overlooked was the fact that the Howard government delivered successive surplus budgets, including bequeathing a $20 billion surplus to the incoming Labor government in 2007.

Perhaps Julia Gillard was too embarrassed to mention the $6 billion the Howard Government saved in the Higher Education Endowment Fund designed to support universities in perpetuity, for she has raided those savings as well.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, particularly while attempting to rewrite history.

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About the Author

Julie Bishop is the Federal Member for Curtin, Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.

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