Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Energy and Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I see. The money that is being spent about the place does not look to me like easing. The second question I have for the member for Bendigo is: if they did such a fantastic job, why did they stab the Prime Minister in the back in the middle of the night after the now Prime Minister admitted that the Labor Party had lost its way?

Mr Deputy Speaker, I actually rise to speak of far more positive things. Can I first say that I am deeply humbled by the people of Groom to be re-elected as their member for what will now be my fifth term. I am particularly humbled by the fact that the margin by which I was elected virtually doubled. That was in no small part due to the efforts of my campaign committee. I wish to put them on the record and thank them, particularly Dave Nichols, who as my campaign manager did a fantastic job; Dylls Kelly and the rest of the Liberal-National Party in the electorate of Groom; and, particularly, the Young Liberal-National Party, which really showed the power and future potential of the Liberal-National Party in Queensland.

While speaking of the LNP I should also mention Bruce McIvor and Michael O’Dwyer for the leadership that they provided and, of course, James McGrath, the campaign director, who did such a fantastic job in Queensland and saw Queensland deliver 21 seats to this federal parliament, which is now the largest coalition division in Australia. Of course, none of that would have been possible without the efforts of Brian Loughnane, the federal director, who ran an exemplary campaign and, were it not for some things which we will not dwell on in relation to decisions by Independents, would have delivered Tony Abbott to government. There is no doubt about one fact, and that is that, for the first time for almost half a century, a first-term government, a Labor government, has been robbed of its majority in the House of Representatives.

It is almost three months since the federal election. Some may feel that it is not that long. Others, for their own reasons, may feel that it has been an eternity, and part of that is that all we are seeing from this government is more of the same—more talk, more rhetoric, the same non-delivery, no reform agenda. It is obviously a government that, to use the Prime Minister’s words, has ‘lost its way’, and this has flowed through to the confidence of the people, particularly those in my electorate of Groom, where the level of apathy from the Rudd-Gillard government is seen as simple fact: for this current government, regional Australia does not exist.

The coalition took a very positive plan for regional Australia to the last election and we looked forward to delivering on that plan had we been elected. In my electorate particularly, the Labor Party failed to make one election promise—not one piece of infrastructure, not one suggested way of improving the lot of regional Australians, many of whom they hope to tax to the absolute limit with their new mining tax. Not one positive piece of news was delivered in the five weeks of the campaign. There is nothing there that would give the people of Groom and the people of regional Australia any hope that this government under the current Prime Minister will deliver them anything.

At the top of the list of things that need to be delivered is the Toowoomba Range crossing. It is a key part of South-East Queensland’s transport infrastructure, a road that currently channels trucks into the main street of Toowoomba at the rate of about 5,000 a day. These are not delivery vans. They are B-doubles carrying all sorts of cargo in both directions, which is crucially important for the economic development of Queensland. When they travel through the main street of Toowoomba, they intermingle with the everyday traffic of a bustling, growing city and, as such, pose a real problem.

We need to see the range crossing built. The Howard government committed $700 million to begin construction of that road. Unfortunately we lost the election and that promise was not able to be delivered. However, the Abbott led coalition renewed that promise and, had we been elected in the election in August, that road would already be on the drawing board being prepared for construction.

The Toowoomba Range crossing highlights the appalling record in regional Australia and it makes a mockery of Labor’s claims about nation building. Building school halls is well and good, and I note that in my electorate particularly the ones built by private schools and church schools have been good projects, but it is important to contrast them with those managed by the Queensland state Labor government. They are appalling examples of waste and mismanagement, inappropriate buildings being built that the schools did not need and did not want, buildings that are not air-conditioned, where there appear to be unreasonable margins being afforded to the contractors involved.

Those sorts of buildings are not infrastructure that is going to earn this country the dollars it needs to pay off the massive debt which the member for Bendigo may have only lightly touched on, a massive debt that is growing daily. In fact, in September the deficit run by this government was almost $14 billion. Not only do the government have to borrow, under normal circumstances, $100 million a day, but in the month of September they had to borrow $400 million a day to feed their spending habit. We need infrastructure that is going to grow this country, that is going to deliver to the people of Australia not only the goods and services that they need but also the economic growth and economic wealth that they need.

It is not just the Toowoomba Range crossing; it is the whole road network west of Brisbane. The member for Blair let the cat out of the bag when he admitted that no money had been spent on the Warrego Highway west of Ipswich since this government had been elected. That is the case. It has been estimated by the Queensland government that $200 million needs to be spent on the section between Helidon and the base of the Toowoomba Range at Withcott alone. I am sure that if the member for Maranoa were here he could take you, Mr Deputy Speaker, through the needs of the Warrego Highway in his electorate, which is significantly more vast than mine.

It is not only infrastructure that we need. The coalition promised to deliver to Toowoomba a PET scanner to improve cancer care in that city. Toowoomba benefited from a Howard government program where I delivered $8.6 million to St Andrew’s Hospital in Toowoomba. I was there just on Friday of last week, both for personal reasons—to have my annual check-up with my radiologist, as you do—and to have a quick look at the expansion of that facility which is now taking place. That facility will not be complete without the ability to provide a PET scan to cancer sufferers. The provision of that scanner is important in terms of saving people, when they are at a difficult point in their lives, the difficult and arduous journey to Brisbane for that sort of treatment. Just because you live in a regional area does not mean that you should go without in any way, and the provision of basic health services is something that I will be continuing to work on through the next three years of this government. I hope at some point that this current Prime Minister realises that there is a whole world outside the capital cities and that she devotes some of her time to ensuring that the infrastructure and health and service needs of those areas are met.

I have in my electorate two very significant defence bases. No-one is prouder than I am of the defence forces. They have done a fantastic job for Australia and continue to do so. I have men and women from my electorate who are currently serving in conflicts, in Afghanistan in particular. It is unfair to them not to receive an assurance from this government that Borneo Barracks will remain open. I fear that at some point the government will close that facility.

I dread to think that that may then be used at some point to house what is a completely uncontrollable expansion in the number of illegal immigrants coming to Australia because of the inaction of this government. We have seen that occur in other parts of Australia. Disused military facilities have been used to house the uncontrolled immigration that we now have in Australia. I hope that is not the case and I call on the Gillard government to make it clear to the people of Groom and to the service men and women of Cabarlah that their base’s future is certain. Certainly under an Abbott government, the future of that base is absolutely assured.

Groom, apart from probably being the best electorate in Australia, is of course at the very top of the Murray-Darling system. What happens in the Murray-Darling is as much of interest to us as it is to the people of Adelaide. The coalition is committed to restoring a healthy river system while retaining the robust rural communities and the productive agricultural sector that have been the backbone of regional Australia, in fact the whole of Australia, not only through my lifetime but through the life of modern settlement in this great nation. The coalition will stand up for regional Australia. We will ensure that any changes to allocations are done with full consideration of the socioeconomic impacts of taking water out of communities that rely on that water, not only for their current livelihoods but for their future livelihoods. You cannot take a thousand gigalitres out of a system and not affect the economic income of the region. Already we are seeing cotton gins and rice mills lie idle. The potential of this government to destroy the heart and soul of rural communities along the Murray-Darling is real. I want to assure them that, just as I will in my own electorate, I will stand up for them right across the length and breadth of the Murray-Darling.

Can I also say that education is an important area, and the changes that we have seen to the youth allowance under the Rudd and Gillard governments are robbing people of the confidence that this government cares at all about those who live outside capital cities. It is important that all people have the ability to receive a good education, which is a pathway to young people having a solid, sound future, but also a pathway to Australia’s future economic growth. The current restrictions in place, particularly in terms of work requirements, are unfair to rural people. Again, the coalition will be doing everything we can in this area whilst in opposition and will certainly be fixing the problem when we get back into government.

I am going to use the remaining portion of my speech to talk about my portfolio interests. In my time I have been a minister for resources and energy, and I currently hold that shadow ministry. Although I see many perplexing things in my life, I have never seen anything so perplexing as the approach of this government towards energy and resources. It is simply amazing that the member for Bendigo and no doubt others, including the member for Corangamite, think that their government single-handedly saved Australia from the recession that the rest of the world had. The reality is that a major part of that economic recovery was down to the mining industry. The resources industry has a long and proud history, since the gold rush days, of supporting this nation’s economy. Now is no different. As we look at what is going to hold our economy and see it grow, we cannot pick up a paper anywhere and not see estimates of the investment that will go into Australia. I think the figure I saw last week was approaching $150 billion. It may have even been $160 billion. Why then would any government move to make that industry uncompetitive?

I have been to most countries in the world in my time as a minister, and I am amazed that this government does not realise that one of the strengths of Australia is its sovereign risk and the fact that any change in that sovereign risk profile by any government will cause investors to reconsider their investment decisions. Everything is a balance, a fine balance, and what we saw with the initial approach with the superprofits tax, the RSPT—again, another political name that sort of gives away the fact that this is more about politics than about good economic management—was that Australia’s economic and sovereign risk profile was damaged permanently by a government that did not realise that if you take away one of the cornerstones of investment in Australia then companies will simply take their copper mine to South America, their coal mine to Indonesia or their gas prospects to Africa or South-East Asia.

The damage that this government has done has been appalling, but just as appalling has been the Prime Minister’s attempt to renege from the deal that she did after she became Prime Minister, where she gave a categorical assurance to the mining industry, particularly to Marius Kloppers and David Peever, in which she said that all state royalties, both current and future, would be credited against the MRRT. The attempt by the Prime Minister to renege on that deal is appalling, and I have to say that I am not surprised that Sam Walsh from Rio Tinto was moved to say that classic quote:

If you can’t trust government, who can you trust?

I say to the Gillard government that they need to prove that they are up to it. They need to prove that their word actually means something and they need to stand by that commitment. The coalition will remove the MRRT, if we are returned to government, because it is a bad tax. The minerals belong to the people of each state and it is up to that state to decide what those minerals are worth. What we have is a government blindly focused on spending and then taxing so they can spend again.

Of course, this is not the only tax on the horizon. The far more damaging tax for all of us is, of course, the carbon tax, a tax which the Prime Minister refused to deny last week in parliament. It will increase electricity prices single-handedly by 25 per cent—that is, by 25 per cent over and above any increases that occur between now and whenever she introduces the tax. I believe that electricity prices are going to rise substantially, in part because of the mismanagement of the electricity sector by Labor state governments. Whatever happens will happen, but on top of whatever happens we are going to see households, mums and dads, who are struggling to pay electricity bills now, not being able to pay electricity prices in the future because this Gillard government is taking a deliberate decision to increase, ahead of the rest of the world, the price of electricity by 25 per cent.

Families are going to get it in the neck. They are already getting it in the neck from Labor governments, with higher water prices, higher gas prices, higher electricity prices, higher registration prices and higher licence fees. Everywhere you go where there is a Labor government, the costs of living are going up. There has to be some sanity brought into this argument. If the rest of the world is stepping back from an aggressive approach to dealing with the price of carbon, Australia should do the same. It will not just be the families who get hurt; it will be the industries and the jobs that rely on those industries. It will be things like the LNG industry, which is an industry that can actually lower emissions, that are going to pay the price for this government’s poor management and complete fixation on spending and then taxing.

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