Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

On election night the Prime Minister told the nation that he had been elected to govern for all Australians. But seven months and one day later it is obvious that some Australians were not included in that promise. I refer to the people of non-metropolitan Australia who have been kicked around like a park football by the new Labor government.

The Treasurer when he introduced his budget described it as a true Labor budget—and it was. This Labor Treasurer spat out his venom on regional communities in the same style that Labor treasurers have at state and Commonwealth level for years. Two-thirds of the pre-budget funding cuts were in rural and regional Australia, with funding slashed or abolished for programs like drought research, job training, rail upgrading and alternative fuel programs. But the budget itself was even worse, with a billion-dollar attack on country Australians. In just three areas—regional development, agriculture and telecommunications—well over $1 billion was cut from programs when that money should have been spent and be being spent now in regional communities.

A number of regional programs worth $426 million provided by the previous government were cut back, and a new program worth only $176 million replaced them. Existing agricultural programs worth $334 million were replaced by new programs worth just $220 million. Labor scrapped the $959 million OPEL contract to provide fast broadband to all Australians and replaced it with expenditure of just $271 million. People who should be getting fast broadband speeds now will have to wait years for the Labor program to come to fruition—if it is ever built. And it is the people in regional Australia that miss out because Labor has so bungled its broadband philosophies.

Labor introduced Caring for our Country, a $2 billion program for environmental and other works around the nation. They have made a great play of that $2 billion expenditure. However, it is $1 billion less than was provided under the NHT and the NAP by the previous government. The regional catchment authorities have had their budgets cut by 40 per cent. They are laying off staff. They were lulled into a false sense of security by the minister’s suggestion that they could apply for some future funding, and that would be shared out amongst them. Now we find out that amount of money is just $25 million and not just the catchment management authorities are going to apply for that money but indeed a wide range of other organisations—local government and industry groups—will also be competing for that funding. The reality is that in spite of Labor’s rhetoric about their care for the environment they have slashed $1 billion off the available funding.

On Saturday the people of Gippsland are going to go to the polls to elect a new member of parliament. Despite the spin we sometimes get from Labor head office, Labor think they can win this seat. The Prime Minister has been down there twice and it would not surprise me if he popped up again before the election in Gippsland. He has written to every family in the electorate to support Labor’s candidate because he wants another member of his cheer squad to be sitting behind him in Parliament House. When he waves his wand he wants another person to say, ‘How high do I jump?’

The people of Gippsland need somebody who will stand up for them. Gippsland needs someone who will be a voice for them in Canberra, not Canberra’s voice in Gippsland. They want somebody who will stand up for people in regional Australia. The government has already got far too much power, and regional Australians need strong voices that will stand up and be counted for people who live outside the capital cities. This government has made it absolutely clear that it cares nothing for those who live outside the capital cities. And yet the Prime Minister had the gall to write to everybody in Gippsland and recommend that they vote for the Labor candidate because he would be concerned about their jobs. This is the same Mr McCubbin who recently said in his local media that the drought which has gripped the region and much of Australia was caused by the operation of the Latrobe Valley power stations. The guy who is supposed to be standing up for the jobs of people who live and work in the Gippsland area says that the problems of global warming and the drought in the nation are all caused by their own power stations—the power stations in the Latrobe Valley. Let me quote his exact words:

Perhaps the fact we are so tied to coal fired power is the reason we’ve been in drought for six years ... Compared to the rest of the world we are really slack in terms of what we churn out of coal fired power stations.

These are outlandish views but particularly outlandish coming from a man who wants to represent the power workers of the Latrobe Valley. If you thought that these views and this lack of concern for the power workers of the Latrobe Valley were perhaps flippant, what about the Prime Minister’s own comments today in answer to a question from the member who will be speaking shortly? That was another demonstration that Labor is quite happy to trade off the jobs of the power workers of the Latrobe Valley to entertain the people in the cities.

The Prime Minister has clearly panicked on his plans for an emissions-trading scheme. They have had these secret midnight cabinet meetings so that no public servant will even know that they are on—or were they just kept waiting so long that they all went home? But they are having these secret meetings to try to develop some kind of emissions-trading scheme. The Prime Minister is becoming increasingly irrational in his statements on emissions trading. Today he even said that we are all going to get dengue fever if we do not have an emissions-trading scheme. How illogical is that? And he talks about other people having a scare campaign. To suggest that we are all going to get dengue fever unless we embrace Labor’s emissions-trading scheme is clearly a nonsense.

Climate change is a serious issue and it needs to be taken seriously, and there needs to be a serious response. We need to promote the use of vehicles and machinery that are more energy efficient, and certainly continue to reduce our carbon emissions to create a greener future. But we will not do this with half-baked schemes that destroy thousands of jobs, drive up inflation and leave Australia at a long-term disadvantage compared with competitors around the world. How can pensioners live on $273 a week if they are also going to have to face higher petrol prices, higher electricity prices and higher costs of living as a result of Labor’s plans for regional Australia?

The Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government is amongst those who do not seem to be able to make up their minds about whether Labor wants to increase prices of petrol or put them down. A few days ago he was quoted as saying that fuel had to be a part of the emissions-trading scheme. Today in question time he was trying to back out of his commitments in that regard. But the people of Gippsland need to know that Labor are the party of higher fuel prices. They are the party that promised to put downward pressure on prices but they have failed to deliver.

This is the same minister, Mr Albanese, who told the House last week, in one of his typical tirades of abuse against people who live in regional areas, how dreadful it was that the previous government had approved $60,000 in funding under the Regional Partnerships program to upgrade public toilets in Lock, a small, struggling country town in South Australia. It is the kind of community that needs a little bit of help with important projects. And this was not just a routine toilet block; this was an innovative development that included the use of stormwater. It was an environmentally friendly project that would have been a model for people in other places. But the minister stuck his boot into the little town of Lock, accused them of rorting and accused them of being associated with programs that were completely unsatisfactory.

I have to say that I was somewhat astonished therefore that 48 hours later the Minister for Sport went down to Gippsland to announce $160,000 for the redevelopment of the Traralgon West sports complex and that project included the building of new public toilets. So new public toilets can be built in Traralgon West—that is okay—but when the little town of Lock wants to have funding provided for a toilet block that is a scandal. Labor goes down into Gippsland and announces $160,000 for a toilet block. I have no problem with a toilet block being built in Traralgon West. It is undoubtedly a very worthwhile project. But the government cannot criticise the previous government for funding a regional project in a little town and then go out and do exactly the same thing—except that they spent double the money—in a project of their own.

I welcome the arrival of the minister for infrastructure. I have just been drawing attention to the fact that—

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