Page 3769 - Week 12 - Thursday, 22 November 2007
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Really importantly, real wages under the Howard Liberal government have increased by more than 20 per cent over the last 11 years. By contrast, real wages fell nearly two per cent over the 13 years of the previous Hawke-Keating Labor governments. The sad thing here is that Mr Rudd is banking on a lot of young people who have grown up with the prosperity caused by the Howard-Costello team, never having experienced the troughs we saw under Hawke and Keating, let alone the absolute troughs we saw under the economic mismanagement of Gough Whitlam, which I think the country only stopped paying for in about the year 2000.
The Howard Liberal government, unlike the current government here in the ACT, is willing to put some of its gains back into the pockets of Australians through lower taxes as well, enabling Australians to actually spend some of their hard-earned gains. The Howard Liberal government, unlike the current government here in the ACT, has made improvements to our health system. It introduced the Medicare safety net. It gave people more choice through rebates for private health insurance and it has increased to the highest ever level GP bulk-billing rates.
The Howard Liberal government has made significant improvements to our education system, unlike the government here that has cut 23 schools—and we are going to see a raft of some of those schools again cut at the end of this year, to the chagrin of those school communities. Last year the federal government increased commonwealth funding of schools by 11 per cent and it has improved school infrastructure through the investing in our schools program, a program that certainly assists a large number of ACT schools. That support for our education system extends to universities through initiatives such as the $6 million education endowment fund.
Quite contrary to the bleatings of the Stanhope Labor government and the Rudd Labor opposition, the Howard Liberal government has had, and continues to have, a long-term commitment to the environment—and this is a commitment that goes back to the Menzies days. In 1960 the Menzies Liberal government recognised the environmental importance of the Antarctic and was one of the 12 original parties to sign the Antarctic treaty. The Howard Liberal government was the first government in the world to recognise the threat of greenhouse gases and climate change when in 1998 it established the Australian Greenhouse Office. Only this week the Howard government has made a commitment worth $10 million in water conservation initiatives to national institutions in the ACT—institutions that were really doing it tough, especially our iconic botanical gardens.
These are just a few examples. I could go on with many more, such as the initiatives in the area of better roads and rail, encouragement for small business, support for older Australians, supporting families, improving information technology, encouraging exports, encouraging tourism and investing in science and innovation. Every single one of the initiatives and programs of the Howard Liberal government benefits the ACT, its people and its economy—every single one of them. The per capita income in the ACT now is close to $200 a week higher than the average around Australia.
Do you know how the Howard Liberal government has been able to make those inroads? It is a simple answer. It is because the Howard Liberal government, through
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