With news that the Government is now going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money to repair the problems caused by its insulation folly, and the waste from the education stimulus payments – driving up construction costs – it is worth remembering Kevin Rudd’s emphatic statement of November 2007:
Today, I am saying loud and clear that this sort of reckless spending must stop.
I agreed with Mr Rudd then – some of the Coalition government’s spending during its last few years was wasteful. But has Prime Minister Rudd stopped reckless spending? No, of course not. He has recklessly spent more in 12 months than the Howard Government did in 11.5 years.
This Government has provided what the market has not demanded (home insulation schemes), which has been clearly unnecessary (the extra halls, gymnasia etc), involving substandard work (eg insulation again) and extortionate profits (clearly happened in the schools building program) and even fraud. The schools building program also seems to have raised building costs generally, above what the market would otherwise have dictated, inflating the value of other construction.
And we are supposed to take it on faith that the $43 billion NBN and the new hospitals scheme can be run effectively at the Federal level. Pull the other leg.
