Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is very interesting to look at the history of this country since Federation in 1901 till 1991. In that time we had two world wars, the Great Depression—and that was far worse than what we are going through here—other skirmishes abroad and we had to build our national capital, including this building we are in now. In those 90 years we as a nation accumulated just $16 billion worth of debt. From 1991 to 1996 we repeated every year something that had taken us 90 years to do and we went from $16 billion to $96 billion of debt, which of course this country had to repay.

We on this side of the parliament know how hard it is to pay off debt. Do we really believe that Labor will repay the $220 billion net debt in the seven years leading up to 2022 at about $30 billion a year, or two per cent of GDP? That has been done only three times in the last 40 years at two per cent of GDP: under Liberal governments in 1970, 1971 and 2000. Did we ever see Whitlam repaying debt? No. Did we ever see Hawke repaying debt? No. Did we ever see Keating repaying debt? No. Of course, Labor have form on creating debt and never repaying it.

Earlier this week I heard the member for Canberra tell the House that her speech this year on the budget was significantly different to the one she made last year. It is no wonder that is so. In one year we have gone from every man, woman and child in Australia having over $2,000 of credit to every man, woman and child having net projected debt of $10,000. It is not surprising the member for Canberra could see a difference. Unfortunately, that is not so for me. Apart from the difference in the debt level, as a representative of a large rural and regional electorate, my first impression of the Rudd government’s second budget was that of deja vu.

Twelve months ago in this place I remarked that it had not taken Labor long since the election to show their attitude of ideological indifference and callousness to the needs of rural and regional Australians, especially to those in the electorate of Barker. This budget is the same old Labor with the same old disregard for the rural sector. Rural and regional communities across Australia are diverse. There are great differences even within my own electorate—the size of the towns, the demographics, the wealth and the environment. What they have in common is a small population spread across a vast area.

Constituents in my electorate are concerned with agriculture as well as other industries. The seat of Barker produces nearly half of Australia’s wine—the best half—and has heavy agricultural industry in the traditional areas of beef cattle, dairy cattle, sheep, horticulture, cropping and forestry, which also cover a very large growing area in the electorate. We certainly are very much the food bowl of South Australia, if not Australia; therefore, what the budget offers for rural and regional Australians in not only agriculture but also water and transport is very important to my constituents in Barker. As with last year’s budget, this budget offers them little. In fact, this a horror budget for the agriculture sector and for the thousands of people who are employed in the agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries.

The Rudd government’s second budget is not only plunging the nation into $220 billion of accumulated deficit but also compromising our farmers’ ability to feed and clothe the nation. The lower south-east of my electorate took a hit earlier this year when the exceptional circumstances declaration was abolished, notwithstanding that the drought was not over for it. For the Riverland, in the north of my electorate, the drought goes on. Riverland residents continue to do it tough with the reduced water allocations, the drought and the economic downturn. Despite the Riverland continuing to be exceptional circumstances declared until 31 March next year on the basis that circumstances warranting the initial declaration have continued—in fact, even worsened—a number of the support measures available under that declaration are due to cease at the end of next month.

The measures that have been discontinued are the Exceptional Circumstances Exit Grant and the Small Business Drought Assistance Grant. The Riverland people have a proud history of overcoming adversity. However, with the resilience and optimism so necessary in the past to keep going, many growers and small business operators who believed themselves to be financially capable of continuing in business before 30 June 2009 will instead find themselves in more dire financial circumstances. It simply does not make sense to abolish drought support after July 2010 when the drought in South Australia is now entering its seventh year and when there are record low inflows and water allocations in the Murray-Darling Basin. Cutting support measures while a region is still exceptional circumstances declared is another Rudd government hit at the bush.

Funding for the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has been slashed by $908 million. There will be 312 staff dismissed from Land and Water Australia, as it has been abolished, and another $12 million will be taken from the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. Not satisfied with cutting the agriculture research budget, Labor has also taken the hatchet to the quarantine budget. Cutting the agriculture research budget is unforgivable, but cutting the quarantine budget is criminal—and the legacy will be a diseased, debt-riddled nation. Just one incursion of foot-and-mouth disease could cost up to $13 billion a year and would result in the slaughter of potentially millions of animals, crippling our economy and devastating regional Australia. The decision by the Rudd government to cut funding has placed at risk our trade markets in agricultural produce, seafood and timber products, worth more than $30 billion each year, much of which comes from my electorate. Not content with cutting its contribution to our quarantine and biosecurity program, the Rudd Labor government is also raising taxes and user charges on exporters, who have no choice but to use AQIS services, by up to 1,352 per cent—destroying jobs and export income.

At the last election, Labor committed to expanding the role of the area consultative committees, re-branding them as Regional Development Australia. It was the ACCs who ensured that input was provided to governments on key regional development issues and priorities. They promoted secure, sustainable long-term jobs in the regions; they promoted investment and regional prosperity; and they raised awareness of programs and services available to regional communities. I guess it follows that you do not give a hoot about rural and regional Australia when you are not interested in facilitating development for that sector. By closing the ACC network and absorbing it into state government agencies, the Rudd Labor government have absolved themselves of any concern or specific responsibility for regional development. On the one hand the Labor government were assuring the ACC networks of their future by asking them to engage their communities and to develop work plans and regional strategies, but on the other hand they were preparing for the elimination of those area consultative committees.

The Rudd Labor government has already closed most of the state based offices of the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. But, in a clear snub to regional Australia, the government has established a new Better Cities unit in Sydney. Labor promised to offer a Better Regions funding program to support community, economic and environmental projects. However, the program was never opened to receive applications; instead, the government used the program to fund commitments made by Labor candidates only in electorates it targeted at the 2007 election.

If it is a location the minister is after for a Better Regions unit, I would like to put forward a number of sites in my electorate: Mount Gambier, Murray Bridge and Renmark, in the Riverland, or the Barossa Valley. I am happy to support a Better Regions unit anywhere but, of course, we no longer have one. Labor promised to retain and enhance the Regional Partnerships and Sustainable Regions programs; however, the Rudd Labor government abolished them and even cancelled grants for projects that had been approved for funding by the former government. I find it incredible that in a budget that predicts that one million Australians will lose their jobs and saddles every man, woman and child with a $10,000 debt, the Rudd Labor government has failed to establish a regional development program that supports economic and social opportunities that create jobs in local communities.

In addition, Labor have chosen to move millions of dollars of funding away from roads and rail into urban public transport projects. The Regional Strategic Roads Program is to be abolished and the money made available to the cities. Rural research funding has been cut and, as I said earlier, drought aid is to end. The Rudd Labor government’s demolition of their own regional development policy is another demonstration that the Rudd Labor government are not interested in regional Australia. Indeed, Labor have made it eminently clear that the regions are not even a concern for them, but it is rural and regional Australians who will pay the price for Labor’s economic mismanagement.

Of late, we cannot open a newspaper anywhere in Australia without encountering a photograph of the Prime Minister in a hard hat and fluoro vest, turning a sod on a building site or gazing benevolently over the future site of a city rail development. Mind you, he is carefully avoiding the places where projects are stalled indefinitely, and we certainly have not seen him anywhere in my electorate. Labor’s much boasted about infrastructure spending has turned out to be a squeak rather than a roar. Of the only $8.4 billion of new projects funded over the next four years from the former government’s surpluses, most will be spent on transport projects in capital cities and most of this has come from money set aside by the Howard government in its Future Fund. More than $1 billion is directed to metropolitan railways, none of which comes anywhere near the Barker electorate. It is even funding the O-Bahn extension in Adelaide against the recommendation of its own Infrastructure Australia, no doubt to help the Labor member in the seat of Makin. All the infrastructure announcements in South Australia are to help marginal Labor seats in Adelaide.

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel with Infrastructure Australia and making financial promises that they could not keep, Rudd Labor should have stuck with the comprehensive forward plan developed by the coalition under the AusLink National Transport Plan. Even that they are going to change. They do not like the use of the moniker ‘AusLink’ because it was a successful program under the Howard government and they are going to get rid of it. The result is that rail and road spending will go backwards next financial year, not forwards. When the worst of the recession begins to impact on Australia in the coming months, Labor will be spending less to keep road and rail builders employed.

Both the Prime Minister and the infrastructure minister have repeatedly said that the infrastructure spending is as much about economic stimulus as it is about creating projects of lasting value. Tellingly, Labor plans to spend less in the next six years than the coalition committed to spend over the next five under AusLink. It comes as no surprise that these projects are city centric. Electrifying the Gawler railway is probably going to help the member for Wakefield; extending the O-Bahn against the recommendation of Infrastructure Australia is supposedly going to help the member for Makin; and the Noarlunga railway lines are good news for the residents of those metropolitan Labor-held electorates but they are not going to do much for any other electorates in Australia. If, instead of promoting the idea of electrifying the railway down south, they had committed to expanding the Southern Expressway, which goes through the seat of Kingston and is very useful for areas south of that in other electorates, it would have had my support. Presently, we have a one-way expressway which changes direction twice a day and of course on weekends it actually changes around the other way. It is a bit of shemozzle, so that would have been of a higher priority than any of the other projects.

Less than 48 hours after the Rudd government brought down this budget, I spoke in this place on the grossly unfair treatment of our young students seeking a tertiary education. Changes to the criteria for youth allowance independence of the parental income test will directly impact on rural and regional students who, despite the disadvantages of distance, unreliable broadband and ongoing drought, achieve great year 12 results and high TER rankings and are offered places at university. Labor has seen fit to abolish the criteria which enabled these students to work part time to fund their own education, to contribute to the enormous cost of moving up to 450 kilometres to Adelaide and paying for board and lodging and the occasional trip home. By doing so, Labor has just made it much harder for many students to attend uni. These students have the ability and the motivation to undertake tertiary studies; they are the professionals of the future and this government should be paving the way for them to continue the academic success they achieve at school.

Universities would generally grant rural and regional students a gap year to enable them to work to fund the high costs associated with moving and studying hundreds of kilometres away. These students do not have the convenience of an 80c bus ride to university in the morning and back home for tea with mum and dad, as city students do. They rely on a gap year to earn money to qualify for the youth allowance as independents. They are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. There is no way that youth allowance alone will fund that accommodation and transport. Parents will still have to find a lot more to enable their students to travel and live in the city. Youth allowance helped, and now these students are being denied the one opportunity they had to gain tertiary qualifications. And that is an absolute disgrace in the treatment of country students in this country.

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