Column - Sunday Mail - 27 June 2010
28 Jun 2011
Article New PM comes with baggage
THIS week union bosses and Labor Party factional warlords, in cahoots with Julia Gillard, assassinated Kevin Rudd and made Ms Gillard Prime Minister of Australia. This is the same Julia Gillard who has presided over billions of dollars in waste and bungle after bungle in education.
In her first press conference, Ms Gillard said her decision to challenge the PM was based on the fact that a “good Government has lost its way”.
Ms Gillard didn't elaborate on which of the bad decisions taken by this “lost Government” she wasn't a party to making, because we know that as Deputy Prime Minister, Ms Gillard was a party to making all of them.
It was Julia Gillard who advised Kevin Rudd to dump the Emission Trading Scheme policy which destroyed his credibility. Ms Gillard herself has said “delay is denial” when it comes to acting on climate change, yet supported the policy being scrapped.
It was Julia Gillard who had a central role in the design, approval and delivery of the disastrous pink batts program, which has been linked to four tragic deaths, 174 known house fires and 1500 potentially deadly electrified roofs.
It was Julia Gillard who gave approval to the great big new tax on mining that is threatening mining projects in South Australia such as the Olympic Dam expansion, Prominent Hill and the Whyalla Steelworks.
It was Julia Gillard who supported the changes to the former Howard Government's immigration policies that once again made Australia an attractive destination for people smugglers leading to three boatloads of asylum seekers arriving every week.
This is the same “lost Government” with a different salesperson. And it is ironic that Kevin Rudd is made to pay the price for some of Julia Gillard's mistakes.
Keep in mind that it has been estimated that Ms Gillard as Education Minister presided over the evaporation of more than $5 billion in taxpayers' dollars from the $16 billion being spent to build school halls.
The program has been beset with waste, mismanagement, price gouging and inflation never before seen. In NSW, where costings have been obtained under Freedom of Information, it has been shown that many public schools are paying as much as $25,000 a square metre for a tuck shop no bigger than a carport. This money has been spent, and is irrecoverable.
The promise to build trades training centres in every high school in Australia has delivered less than 20 operating facilities nationwide.
The promise to build 260 childcare centres has resulted in only eight operating facilities nationwide and the pro- gram has now been junked because, according to Ms Gillard, there is an overabundance of childcare places.
A change from Deputy Prime Minister to Prime Minister a few months from an election will not stop the billions being lost in the school hall program, or stop the house fires in the pink batts program, or stop the influx of boat people, or scrap the great big new tax on mining that threatens jobs in SA.
If you want to change the country for the better, you need to change the government.