Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It seems that the member for Chifley is a little obsessed with what goes on in the coalition party room. Perhaps he could enlighten us on some of the PowerPoint presentations they may have had in the Labor Party—for example, Craig Thomson's PowerPoint display on how to run an efficient union; Bill Shorten's PowerPoint on how to be loyal to your leader. You could watch the reruns a couple of months later. Watching a PowerPoint display in the Labor Party would be like watching an episode of Australia's Most Wanted.

But I digress. This is a serious MPI and I thank the member for Chifley, who just left. He could have done one on how to be a snappy dresser, but we will not go there. I like blue suits. This is a serious topic. I would like in my contribution to talk about what it is like being a regional member of this place, representing a third of New South Wales, when you have a coalition government in Canberra and a coalition government in Sydney.

How about we start with infrastructure? This is the largest infrastructure spend in this country's history, having a minister for infrastructure come to your electorate and allocate funds for safety on the Newell Highway. That highway runs the backbone of New South Wales, it carries more freight than any other highway and it has been neglected for the last six years. Funding has been allocated for heavy vehicle safety programs on the Gil Gil road at Pallamallawa. The Labor Party would not know where Pallamallawa is, but I can tell you that it is an important part of regional New South Wales and residents deserve to have safe roads that can also provide road train access.

We could talk about the NBN—the NBN that promised nothing but debt under the Labor Party. But it is now delivering real services to the people of New South Wales. We could talk about mobile phones. I sat in this place in 2008 and watched the Labor Party raid the $2½ billion from the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund and not for six years did we see one cent going into mobile coverage in New South Wales. Not one cent! So how about we talk about some financial responsibility and what mobile phone coverage does to the productivity of New South Wales and Australia?

We could talk about schools funding and how, under this government, schools funding to the states is going up by eight per cent, nine per cent, six per cent every year. We can talk about the BER program that still leaves one of my contractors in Moree owed $642,000 due to the mismanagement of it.

We could talk about droughts, where the member for Watson stood in here and said, 'We don' talk about drought anymore—we have dryness.' So we removed the drought policy. So now, in the worst drought in living memory in my electorate, we have had to reconstruct a drought policy, where now over 4,000 family households in farms are getting some support. We have more to do that as this drought deepens; but we were left with nothing from that side.

How about we talk about financial responsibility, with $900 cash payments? If you are wondering where the $2½ billion went from the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund, in 2008, it went into $900 cash payments that led to an increase in domestic violence and record takings in some of the poker machines in the pubs in my electorate. Compare that to Work for the Dole, the Green Army, responsibility for mutual obligation for people who are receiving government funds and getting some safety into families. Talk about putting money into organisations such as Clontarf.

If we want to talk about the environment, why don't we talk about the carbon tax versus the Direct Action Plan. Pensioners in my electorate could not turn on their air conditioners and sweltered in the heat and froze in the winter, because they were scared witless about the carbon tax. Compare that to actually paying people who can reduce their emissions, something that can be measured, paid for and reduced. If the Labor Party were so insistent on helping the environment, how about they get in with us now and put some certainty around the renewable energy target, something that they actually agree with us on but will not vote for due to their political ends. There is uncertainty in the whole sector because of that. Being lectured by the Labor Party on budget responsibility is a ridiculous scenario and they should be treated with the contempt they deserve.

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