Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

He is rearranging them out of the area—that is what he is doing. In their first budget, Labor cut funding to both Chamber Music Australia and the Australia on the World Stage program. There is also funding for the Regional Arts Fund. I will interrupt myself here to say, with regard to that interjection, that it is not a matter of just rearranging the funds if you are removing a service from a particular area, which is the outcome of what is happening here. Whether it is an attack on Victoria or whether there is something behind this that I do not know about and that Mr Garrett has yet to explain I do not know, but what I do know is that there are as many on the government side who are discomfited about this issue as there are on this side of the House. So, when ministers or those at the table decide to interject, let us be reasonable and fair about exactly what is happening here. I have been in this place in opposition before today; I have been here in government. I know there can be a dyspeptic relationship between the backbench and the frontbench and those in between. The frontbench can become vastly distanced from the backbench. It is up to both sides’ frontbenches to listen to their backbenches, and I think that, if Mr Garrett spent a bit of time with his backbench, he would find that this $2½ million could be best rearranged and reafforded back to this centre of excellence. They have already cut funding to both Chamber Music Australia and the Australia on the World Stage program. The Regional Arts Fund has been reduced from $16.4 million to just $11.7 million, and in this process we are losing our best.

If you want to talk about losing one of our best programs—I appeal to the frontbench and backbench of the Labor Party on this—then one of the great programs that the Howard government put in place was Investing in Our Schools. I know the current Labor government will say: ‘Look, you were only propping up the states. That’s all you were doing. You were propping up the states who were failing in their processes to fund education properly.’ The Investing in Our Schools Program in McMillan was the best thing that happened to schools in my electorate. Did we make some mistakes? I am sure we did. I am sure there were some schools that were funded and then closed and that a few things went wrong. But basically we took away that burden from parents and school communities to have to raise those funds for the shadecloths and the playgrounds and all those wonderful refurbishments they did at their schools—especially our small country schools.

I come from a rural electorate. The member for Gippsland is in the room and he would know exactly what was provided in Gippsland and in McMillan and the benefit to all of those communities. Everywhere I go, principals are still saying to me: ‘What a great program. I’d love you to come along and have a look at what we’ve done. Have a look at the other money we included to go along with Investing in Our Schools money. It’s a great program.’ The member for Makin may smile, because he is getting the benefit at all of his schools, and it was provided by the Howard government. Go and talk to your schools about the Investing in Our Schools Program and you will find that the benefit to them was not about politics; it was a great opportunity for this government to invest in our children.

I have just been to the opening of the drill hall at Korumburra. The government now has the infrastructure fund, and $200,000 was put into refurbishment of the drill hall. It was promised by the former member for Gippsland, Peter McGauran, and was delivered by the current member for McMillan, Russell Broadbent, but it came from the infrastructure fund. Fifty thousand dollars would finish that drill hall, yet so far the government has not announced one program to which these great people in Korumburra could apply to just finish the kitchen and the meeting rooms in the drill hall. It is a fantastic program. A lot of community work and effort, as well as a lot of in-kind contribution, has gone into that drill hall. It was a great opening the other night. I enjoyed having the first dance with Jennie Deane on the drill hall floor. The Victoria Police Band was there for the opening. It was a gala event for Korumburra, and it was a great investment. I would encourage the government to look closely at how it is going to fund local organisations. I know we have a national crisis on our hands with regard to the finances of this nation. At the same time, the outlays that can help small communities like Korumburra if we invest, say, another $50,000 will make a lot of difference.

I want to address the funding for coordinators of Landcare. Most of them are volunteers. An army of volunteer labour is slowly dissipating. We are losing talented and knowledgeable people because of the lack of money to coordinate this program. It is a most effective and worthwhile program; it is very cheap to run and the results far outweigh the costs. One of the great stories of the Howard government was its investment in the environment through all of the Landcare providers. I have been on a tour just of parts of my electorate where you see magnificent work done. I am sure there is not a member in this House who does not have a good story about Landcare. I think it is something in which the government needs to invest. One of my pets is that one day there will be no ocean outfalls and that one day our investment in trees will continue. We need to regreen this nation. We need to regreen the southern part of the nation.

Regarding the provision of adequate broadband, the lack of government progress on this is causing hardship across a lot of country areas—around rural areas especially. Parts are not serviced by cable or ADSL and still rely on dial-up. It is totally outmoded, and in the most extreme circumstances their only option is to go for satellite, which is subsidised by the government. That was an initiative of the previous government. Even that is suffering, with providers having issues themselves.

Health and ageing is very important. With the financial crisis, there is the deposit guarantee for the holding of bonds of amounts over $1 million. That amount of money is held by aged-care facilities on behalf of their clients. In most cases they will now attract the charge that will come for the prudential arrangements that the government is putting in place—the charge on amounts of funds held over $1 million. This needs to be looked at. Perhaps they can be corralled or provisioned elsewhere. Aged-care homes, even the smallest, would often hold over $1 million in aged-care bonds, so the government needs to look closely at that area and the effect that will have on small, not-for-profit aged-care facilities. We have received an answer back, but there is really no answer as to how the government will respond to that issue.

Pensions are on the long-term agenda. We need to cover the confusion as to when pensioners will get a rise in their pensions. The Rudd government has instead provided for a $4.8 billion one-off payment to the four million pensioners, carers and seniors, and yet a headline in the Age today was about the financial crisis hitting by Christmas. I do not believe that most of these people will be spending this money; they will be paying off debt—they will be paying off accounts and bills that they have not been able to pay at this stage. So, whilst the package for pensioners is important, particularly across my electorate there have been some difficulties. This has been an issue. The day-to-day costs are probably the most difficult.

The May budget, as outlined by the member for Makin, turned out to be wrong on inflation and wrong on interest rates. We were not to know at that stage that we were about to be hit by a financial tsunami. That has hit and it grows. We have to remain positive because Australia was left with a very strong economy by the Howard government. Mr Deputy Speaker Bevis, I want to leave you with this: without the fiscal responsibility of the Howard government, we would not be in the position that Australia is in today in order to face up to the consequences of the financial meltdown.

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