Affordable pensions, yes, but why bother with cost-beneift analysis on a $43 billion NBN?

Stephen Conroy at the National Press Club yesterday:

TELSTRA made it very clear that they could find no business case beyond five capital cities and north and south of Sydney. So the Gillard government has decided we're going to do it. We're not going to wait another 12 months doing a cost-benefit analysis.We are leading the world in leading Australians to the 21st century. We're not hiding it, we're making it clear that this is a government investment.

Julia Gillard on July 28:

BETWEEN the pension rise and paid parental leave, we are talking about expenditure of more than $50bn over the next 10 years. That's a lot of money. And so when these proposals were made, the question at the forefront of my mind was: are they affordable? I believe that is the appropriate approach to take.

It's the approach I've taken on decisions within this government and if I'm elected as prime minister, it's the approach that I will take for the future.

Tony Abbott on August 4:

OK, look, everyone wants national broadband. What I'm against is nationalised broadband and I think competition rather than government ownership is the best way to ensure fast and affordable access to broadband services.

Forward with Labor in 1949. Ben Chifley's second reading speech on the Australian National Airlines Bill, July 31, 1945:

AIR transport will become one of the great public utilities of Australia and will become an increasingly greater competitor of commonwealth and state railways. I hope the time will come when all these great transport utilities will be co-ordinated in one general scheme, so that all the public money invested in the various railway systems shall not be adversely affected by competition from airlines. My only regret is that the Constitution confines the government to inter-state airlines, but I do not despair about the prospects of controlling intra-state airlines. The proper monopoly, if there is to be one, is a government monopoly. That is our purpose. I repeat that it is absolutely necessary that the government should control air transport. I hope the day is not far distant when all air transport will be under government control.

Gillard at her alma mater, Unley High School, in Adelaide yesterday:

AS a government we have already created Teach for Australia, a way in which the best and brightest graduates can come into teaching, and it has successfully, to date, brought high achieving graduates into teaching, into classrooms in disadvantaged schools.

Gillard on ABC1's The 7:30 Report, July 19, 2010:

KERRY O'Brien: When you talk about better teachers, can you nominate any clear, existing example of where you can say that your policies have led to better teaching?

Gillard: Kerry, I certainly can. I can point you to our new program, Teach for Australia, which already has some of our best and brightest graduates teaching in disadvantaged schools, people who got first-class degrees going through an accelerated program, teaching in disadvantaged classrooms today.

Gillard on February 24, 2010:

THE education revolution is delivering new resources and reforms to teaching through our $2.5bn National Partnerships for Smarter Schools. Another example is Teach for Australia, which is bringing high achieving graduates to disadvantaged schools.

Peter Van Onselen in The Australian on July 24:

GILLARD has never been directly involved with the TFA initiative. It is run by an independent not-for-profit organisation. It receives funding not only from the government but from individuals and corporate sponsors as well. It even has a Liberal on its board of directors: Alan Tudge, the candidate for the Victorian seat of Aston. And the idea for the scheme certainly wasn't Gillard's; it came from the US, where a similar venture, Teach for America, has operated for years.

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