Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In this matter of public importance debate I would like to give a little bit of history. Since Federation, there has not been a parliament that has been able to form a government without a country member in it. There has been a lot of preoccupation today about the fairly dismal performance of the National Party in the last parliament. I think there is a message in this, and the member for Kennedy touched on it, for the current government as well. There has not been a government formed in this parliament without a country member. Some people, particularly some people in the country—and the poor old National Party are going through this problem themselves—are assuming that they are a minority and therefore can never really make a contribution to the parliament.

We are in a unique period of our political history. The two sides of parliament—the city based dominant factions on both sides of the parliament—are almost identical. So this is a unique period, and I think that is one of the reasons that people in the country are looking for alternatives such as Independents and some of the minor parties in the Senate. Given that unique period of our political history—the sameness of the city based parties—the country could express itself in a different fashion. The former member for Gwydir, who has just carried out an inquiry recommending that the National Party merge with the Liberal Party, is betraying the very power that that once great party may well have had. That will be up to others. I think there is a warning to all country members in the parliament: do not ever forget that a government has never been formed without a country member as part of it.

Another issue that I would like to touch on is the hypocrisy demonstrated here earlier. I agree again with the member for Kennedy that the Labor Party is at a crossroads. You have been able to buy 12 months and there are a number of commitments out there, and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and the Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Northern Australia alluded to some of those. They are all well and good—and they are particularly good in terms of infrastructure—but they have not been delivered yet. The next 12 months are going to be very important in terms of the delivery of some of those, particularly the major infrastructure items. But I point out the hypocrisy that the Leader of the Nationals and others demonstrated—as did the Leader of the Opposition in an earlier debate, if I may mention that. The Fuel Sales Grants Scheme was brought in by the former government to compensate country people for the difference in the goods and services tax that they would have to pay in relation to fuel, because the price of fuel was higher in the country than in the city and we were obviously facing a dual tax system. The Fuel Sales Grants Scheme was brought in to compensate for that and the compensation offered amounted to up to 3c a litre.

That government—not the current government, the previous government—removed that, so now there is a dual system. Country people pay more GST on their fuel than their city cousins. When you look back at that, the hypocrisy in accusing any government about taxation and the way it is operating at the moment is stark. When he was Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, the current Leader of the Opposition promised the people of the Liverpool Plains, in front of a television camera that went to news that night, that he would fund an independent study into the potential impact of mining on the groundwater systems of the Namoi Valley—and then betrayed those people by giving a directive to the departmental head to do nothing. The hypocrisy of suggesting that the new government has not done anything yet when these sorts of things were going on behind the scenes is stark.

The final nail was the new member for Calare. This week is the 12-month anniversary of the death of the former member for Calare. To listen to that man, the new member for Calare, and compare him to the former member for Calare—and to hear him say about the Regional Partnerships program and the absolute rorting that went on that it reflected what people want—is staggering. If that does not demonstrate a party and a philosophy that has absolutely betrayed its constituency and its integrity and any capacity to represent country people in the future, I do not know what does.

See this speech in context