Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I am really pleased to be able to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-2008 and cognate bills currently before this House and, in so doing, to contribute to the budget debate and indeed highlight the good things that I see for my electorate of Farrer in the 2007 budget. The Treasurer, in delivering the budget, said that it had been ‘framed to lock in progress’. He said that we need to ‘lock in the achievements of the past’ to help ‘deal with the challenges of the future’ and that this budget ‘with its investment in education, skills, in road and rail and sharper work incentives will add to that capacity’ and ‘will drive further economic growth’.

I represent a rural electorate. Like many others it is feeling the effect of the drought. The contribution that agriculture makes to the nation’s economic wellbeing is highlighted by the budget papers in that they acknowledge that the drought and its impact on agricultural performance, exports and the wider economy remain a source of considerable uncertainty. I will not quote the numbers; suffice it to say that, if agricultural output continues to decline, there will be a significant brake on our growth in the 2007-08 year. I am happy to say that, since the budget came down in May, we have had good rains in many parts of Australia. But as colleagues who represent areas that have not received good rain will quickly remind all of us who have received some, the recovery still does have a long way to go in terms of sustainability—where we have had falls and cropping has been started and also in the areas that are still waiting.

I think that the Treasurer’s comments—and indeed the comments of all our economic leaders—about the effect of the drought on Australia’s GDP, on our growth, should serve as a reminder to all urban Australians, who possibly feel that their rural relations are not contributing to but rather are being a drain on the economy, of the role that we all really do play. I make that remark because with the debate about climate variability and with the increasing focus on the environment—particularly on the Murray-Darling Basin, where I am—people are starting to wonder about the role of farming. It is definitely not the time to do that. It is definitely the time to support our farmers, get behind them and, most importantly, recognise their contribution to the economic wellbeing of Australia.

On the subject of economic performance generally, I note that the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Glenn Stevens, has commented that the economy is running at full throttle. He said on 21 February that ‘the factor most constraining further expansion is not insufficient demand but insufficient capacity, of either labour or capital or both’. Anecdotally, I hear, as I am sure others hear, that firms cannot find workers, wages have increased because workers are in short supply and some job placement agencies are utilising 457 visas to bring workers with the skills that they need to Australia. It is in this environment that the opposition expresses its determination to turn back time and artificially impose an inflexible system on the Australian workplace—a system that derives entirely from a philosophical perspective not shared by most average Australians, which is that workers and bosses are automatically in disagreement.

The other rationale for the Labor Party’s view of the workplace relates to money and power—the money provided to Labor Party operations by unions and the power that they have over Labor as their greatest investor and stakeholder. In fact, the Australian people—not the union movement—have the greatest stake in their political parties because they are the ones whose interests are supposed to be represented by those parties. But if one branch of one union, the Electrical Trades Union, has over the last 10 years donated $3.8 million to the ALP, the issue in my mind is not whether after that union’s leader has been outed and disgraced the money is paid back but how much money is received in total from all unions for the Labor Party coffers. I imagine it is huge and it comes at a price. I think the Australian people are entitled to know what that price is.

The budget contains tax cuts worth $31.5 billion over the next four years. Every taxpayer in the Farrer electorate will benefit. I consider these tax cuts a strong demonstration that the government has managed the economy well. If we had not, there would be no dividends to return to the Australian people. Labor governments, such as the present one in New South Wales, have no dividends in terms of taxes and charges to return to their citizens. The New South Wales government is not in a sufficiently financially sustainable position to give the farmers of New South Wales who are struggling with the drought any relief from the taxes and charges they pay. The New South Wales government signed up to the national water plan with indecent haste because they do not have the dollars to manage their water resources adequately—bad economic management hurts.

I would like to say something about technical training. As a government we are building a culture that encourages training, retraining or further skills development. This includes many of the 3.4 million members of our workforce who did not finish school and older Australians who are needed by the modern workforce and for whom continuing to work beyond age 55 will help their lifestyles and health and their local economies. Our technical training colleges will provide real alternatives to those who have strong technical and vocational skills and are suited to a career in trades. We have further measures in the budget to encourage apprenticeships, both for employers and for their apprentices. We want those who start apprenticeships to finish them. We want to restore a strong sense of worth and good standing to those in technical trades.

While I am talking about apprenticeships, I want to recognise the role of the Riverina Institute of TAFE, which has some 18 campuses—including in Albury, Finley, Deniliquin and Coomealla—not all of them in my electorate. I cannot speak highly enough of them in that they are so flexible and so responsive to the training that is needed at a particular time by local communities and industries. I know that TAFE colleges visited parliament and said they were unhappy about the level of funding. I certainly spoke to members who came to see me. They assured me they were also seeing the New South Wales government authorities, who do have the primary responsibility for TAFE. My purpose in mentioning them is not political but simply to say that they do a fantastic job.

Another measure in the budget that is of particular interest not just to my area but to rural Australia is the more than $65 million of Commonwealth government funding for a new school of dentistry and oral health to be established at Charles Sturt University. There are currently limited rural opportunities for dental students to undertake their clinical training outside major metropolitan centres so this funding includes an up-front capital investment of about $58 million along with recurrent funding for university dental and oral health places and student accommodation support.

The new school will be a focal point in Australia for students wishing to train and practise dentistry in rural and regional areas. It will be rolled out over five regional sites. There will be preclinical and clinical facilities in Orange and Wagga and there will be three dental education clinics in Albury, Bathurst and Dubbo. Obviously I am particularly interested in Albury, and I know the great job that the Albury campus of the Charles Sturt University does. Most particularly, its development of a formula for training in allied health fields away from major metropolitan centres has meant that it has record numbers of graduates in speech therapy, physiotherapy and all of the allied health fields and that record numbers of graduates go on to practise in rural areas. That of course is what we need.

More dentists will also be encouraged to work in regional Australia through two other federal budget initiatives. There will be a new program to create rural dental schools and to provide city based dentistry students with experience in country towns as part of their training. There will also be a new program of scholarships to encourage Indigenous people to study dental health.

As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry I am responsible for administering the Rural Financial Counselling Service. It is a program that is fully occupied in meeting the demands of clients as a result of prolonged and widespread drought. It benefits primary producers and small rural businesses which are suffering financial hardship. It helps them identify ways to become self-reliant and to better equip themselves to manage the changes that are occurring within their industries.

I pay tribute to those who work as rural financial counsellors in the front line, if you like, who deal with farmers and farm businesses every day. They are an important component of the survival of those businesses. They provide financial advice and, as the businesses move forward, when it rains they have to consider their place in both the local and the global marketplace in terms of the commodities they produce. I see these financial counsellors as agents for change, if you like, assisting them in working out the options and the best outcomes for their business given a range of external factors. They are not just people who help you fill in forms, important though that is; they actually do a lot more.

There has been increased funding to the program in recent years, because we need to acknowledge the decreased capacity of rural communities to raise their own local contributions to maintain this important service. The 2007-08 budget committed $55.9 million to the program over the next four years, including previously announced funding of $10.8 million for the current funding agreement period. It also includes a commitment of almost $1 million for additional rural financial counsellors and other resources to meet demand from people who may be adversely affected by reduced high security water allocations in the southern Murray-Darling Basin in 2007-08. High security water users are facing an unprecedented set of circumstances: from 1 July, when the water year starts, they may be facing an allocation of zero. While general security users, such as dairy and those who grow annual crops, such as rice, will have become used to the water year starting with an allocation of zero, I do not think it has ever been zero for high-value plantings. Of course, that presents a crisis: if your citrus, table grape, wine grape tree does not get water, its productivity is severely affected. The tree itself may not die, but it will get a really bad kick in the guts and that will make a big difference to the yields that you will get in the future.

In recognition of that, money has been allocated for additional rural financial counsellors to meet that demand. There are eight service providers located in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, and they have all been invited to apply for those additional funds on offer. Some of them are in the electorate of Farrer, some in the neighbouring electorates of Mallee, South Australia, and north central Victoria.

The government uses the Exceptional Circumstances program to support those affected by drought. Many of my constituents have used that and are continuing to be supported by it and welcomed the announcement of its continuation in the budget. Currently, there are 29 areas in New South Wales that are declared to be in EC, covering 98 per cent of New South Wales agricultural land. As at 4 May 2007 the Australian government had provided $789 million in assistance to farmers in New South Wales—and I make that point because we are often criticised for not doing sufficient for those affected by the drought. But I think $789 million to New South Wales farmers is indeed a very real commitment. At the end of last year we announced new measures to help drought-affected small businesses. That recognises the unprecedented severity, length and extent of the current drought and the impact it has had on small towns. That is a good thing to do, but we hope that it will not be needed for too much longer.

All parents worry about their children’s education. The $5 billion Higher Education Endowment Fund announced in the budget is an unprecedented investment in the future of the higher education sector and provides additional and ongoing funding for excellence, quality and specialisation in Australian universities. I have had terrific feedback on that. I certainly recognise the efforts of rural parents to send their children to university where it means that sending them away leads to a high level of sacrifice. They will be comforted to know that the sacrifices they make are really going to be worth it, because we all need to be confident that students who study at our Australian universities will be getting not just a good education but a world-class education. The features of the additional investment in higher education in the budget, as I said, were very much welcomed. I look forward to further details of those.

Other announcements which I should probably mention briefly include improved childcare assistance, which all working parents appreciate. That will mean that those whose incomes have dropped due to drought will continue to access childcare assistance. As to investment in land transport, over five years $22.3 billion will be provided for Australia’s road and rail infrastructure. That is absolutely terrific. Local governments continually struggle with reducing allocations from the states to just maintain their local road network and there will be a good injection of funds to help them do that.

Sustaining our environment is very topical at the moment. I totally reject criticisms that this government is not doing enough to look after the environment—$10 billion over 10 years to conserve and sustain Australia’s water supply is an absolutely enormous commitment. I really look forward to Victoria stepping up and signing on to the national water plan which, from my point of view, will absolutely transform irrigated agriculture in my electorate. There are probably two sides in looking at the national plan: one would reflect on irrigated agriculture and the other would reflect on the benefits to the environment in which people who do not necessarily live in the Murray-Darling Basin still have a great interest. Looking through the outline of the plan, I am happy that I can safely say both of those issues, both of those concerns, will be extremely well addressed. The only thing holding us back is Victoria and I do hope they sign on as soon as possible.

Better health and aged care, defence, national security and additional measures for older Australians and carers were all important to the constituents I represent. There is of course more work to be done because there is always more work to be done. I would not presume to tell the constituents of Farrer that the government, of which I am a part, has done everything for them. I appreciate that people are not as interested in the past as they are in the future. I know that, along with my colleagues in this place, I will go on working as hard as I possibly can to make our future as bright as possible.

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