Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are desperate for a sense of direction about the things that really matter to the future of our economy in our country. They want leaders who have the futures of our children in mind, who have the ability to sensibly invest in long-term national growth and who have the courage to consider new ideas. They want leaders who can deal with the present, while planning and building for the future. Free speech and debate is at the heart of such policy making and good government. Yet, last week we saw the bizarre spectacle of federal Labor ministers falling over one another to shut down debate on the coalition's early draft discussion paper, 'Developing Northern Australia—a 2030 vision'. The parade of 11 Labor ministers giving highly denigrating and dismissive statements by 10 am in response to a leaked part of a draft discussion paper, a paper that most of them could never have read or seen, was both embarrassing for the government and a very bad sign of things to come in this soap opera election campaign.

It was regrettable that an early rather than a later draft of the federal opposition's plans to populate, invest in and develop Northern Australia, found its way into the press. Nevertheless, the public's response has been very positive. A Daily Telegraph poll posted with the story showed 62 per cent support from 5,500 voters, and encouraging media reports and editorials followed across the country and continue through to today. Debate and consideration of initiatives that could deliver a northern food bowl, triple mineral exports, see major energy developments, a bigger high-value northern tourism industry and world centres of excellence for tropical medicine and health research together with major education and Defence facilities and a larger population must not be choked off or closed down for crass political purposes.

The government's recent Asian paper clearly suffered from being secretly prepared within the bowels of the bureaucracy and ministerial offices, without the benefit of wide community consultation. No wonder it resulted in a bland document which has sunk like a stone. The minister for trade today could not even spend three minutes mounting any sort of defence. It was embarrassing. What a missed opportunity for leadership.

The Labor government should be concerned that the 200,000-people-strong Cairns area has consistently had the highest level of unemployment in Australia for some years and it remains around 10 per cent today. This is a government that should be governing for all Australia, not just for a few and not just for politically-sensitive areas, but for all Australians.

As the mining boom has shown, growth and development in all parts of Australia feed back into jobs and opportunities in Sydney and in all major capital cities, and the suggestion that the coalition will in some way take our eye off the rest of Australia by seeking informed feedback about the long-term development of the north, before taking final decisions ahead of the election, is an insult. The coalition is working hard on a wide range of policy initiatives to create jobs across the country, with a high priority on places like Western Sydney, Tasmania, Victoria and other such areas where unemployment is already above six per cent and growing.

A coalition government will be a government for all Australians, addressing not only today's problems but also mapping out a pathway for future national growth, prosperity and stability, and in the process we will not be bullied out of publicly testing new ideas about developing our nation's full growth potential.