The whole debates turns on whether it warrants that happening now, in other words what is the state of the economic cycle, and how large a stimulus is warranted at a particular time. That's the theory at least. And it does mean that now is a good time for the Government to be loosening the purse strings. The next question, though, is what is the money to be spent on. The real danger is that the traditional response to a burst of populism is for spending your way out of trouble.
Politicians have typically done that, all it does is typically waste taxpayers' money.
Certainly there is good spending that can be done in Australia's region. Some of its infrastructure is creaking and in desperate need of new investment. We decided to go the extra distance. I might say, in the face of criticism from some people who look at government decisions entirely in the narrow confines of pure economics, that we decided to go the extra distance because we think there's a nation-building component in this railway. Railway is an absolute classic.