Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I strongly support the private member’s motion moved today by Mr Entsch, the member for Leichhardt. I could not agree with it more. Let me say that the coalition strongly supports it. It is of critical concern that we make sure that all Australians can live in safety. Certainly there is an issue of climate change. The coalition has a detailed strategy to address climate change. But if you just have that ethereal look and a lot of theory about what could happen with climate change and you have a carbon tax agenda and ignore at the same time the fact that there are communities being inundated as we speak in our Torres Strait Islands, with their sea walls disappearing, then how good is this government? It is ignoring a problem that can be fixed with some cement and mortar and some heavy machinery. It is a job that could be done tomorrow.

But what we are hearing from the government, as we just heard from the member for Oxley, who was speaking before me, is: ‘Let’s think about climate change. Let’s not think about the six low-lying outer islands in the Torres Strait, which for four years have lived with the dangers of sea inundation and island flooding.’ They have watched their cemeteries wash away. Their children’s health has been jeopardised by contaminated water and difficulties with mosquitoes and other water related conditions because the government has failed to do the simplest thing, which is to repair inadequate, partly destroyed sea walls—40-year-old sea walls.

Let us do the job that is immediately demanding action. Let us do it right now. Let us listen to the member for Leichhardt. As he said, the coalition have committed the funding but we are not, unfortunately, going to be in government in the next few months. Therefore, this government needs to adopt the actions that the member who moved this motion has identified. It is not rocket science. It is a matter of equity and justice for people who deserve better.

No-one in the opposition is surprised by Labor’s neglect of these remoter communities, these non-metropolitan communities. As the member for Leichhardt said, they are beyond the Canberra press gallery’s immediate and easy reach, beyond the daily metropolitan newspapers and beyond the electronic media’s interest. When you have issues that are a little bit further away than Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane then you struggle for attention from this government. That is simply not fair and it is un-Australian.

Labor stopped the funding of Landcare. People on the other side might say: ‘What the heck does that matter? What’s Landcare?’ Landcare was a 25-year-old program which was keeping environmental services going in our country. It managed weeds, feral animals and biodiversity. It was abolished without even an apology from the Labor government. The Natural Heritage Trust also disappeared.

But one of the worst was the independent youth allowance for rural and regional students. Again, the government of today has said: ‘Well, you know, it doesn’t really matter. Those kids, if they’re smart enough, will get to uni somehow.’ The realities are that country kids, those beyond the tram tracks, those beyond the green and leafy suburbs, are now deferring going to university at rates of twice those of metropolitan students. That is the erosion of the next generation of professionals in Australia. It is kids who on merit had places in universities but could not afford to go. The rate of university deferral in country Victoria has gone up to 15.2 per cent in 2010, while in the same year city deferrals are only seven per cent in Victoria. That means the rate of deferrals in country Victoria is double. And, of those who defer, only three out of 10 ever go back to take up the study option. That is another example of how this government turns and looks the other way when it comes to the needs of people beyond the metropolitan Australian populations. It is just not fair.

Then we go back again to this issue of serious flooding in the Torres Strait Islands. They have had violent storms, tidal surges, and you can imagine the terror of those populations during the recent cyclones that wiped out so much of Queensland—and of course south-east Queensland suffered dreadfully with their floods. We have had all those losses of lives. You can imagine the terror of being on a small, low-lying island like Saibai as those king tides, those violent storms, washed through and over their inadequate 40-year-old walls. I cannot imagine the terror of having that occur—and both the state and federal governments were looking the other way.

I am all for the support that is now being given particularly to flood affected victims in south-east Queensland. The coalition does not object to that. In fact we support that level of financial assistance to put farmers back on their feet, to put community non-government organisations back on their feet and to help local government. We wonder, though, why that same generosity of spirit does not extend to other parts of Australia like the Torres Strait but also like my electorate in northern Victoria, where I too saw floods devastate my communities. Over 80,000 hectares of field crops and 120,000 tonnes of hay and silage are gone, over 330,000 chooks, hens, were killed and over 11,000 sheep were destroyed. This is also devastation, but we have not had much media attention.

Today Prince William is going to one of the small communities still under water in northern Victoria. We hope that therefore the media entourage will take a good look at what it means to live in Benjeroop right now, a month after the flood but still with six inches of water through your house. We hope he will bring some attention to the problem, but what we want is the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the Labor government to focus on it too. We want them to announce that part D of the natural disaster funding that is available in south-east Queensland is also available in Victoria. We want to see the state government of Victoria—which unfortunately has inherited a budget with a lot fewer dollars in it than it anticipated from the recently departed Labor state government—hand in hand with the federal government of Australia, saying, ‘Yes, we’ve got to restore those rural communities in northern Victoria, just like the Queensland government is being helped with south-east Queensland.’ Too often, we are ‘out of sight, out of mind’.

We have seen the government weep crocodile tears for low-lying Pacific islands—and we join with them in saying that places like Kiribati have serious problems. But why would you be sad and put some dollars into assisting low-lying Pacific islands when your own Australian populations on the Torres Strait are having those same devastating experiences of king tides and so on? They are being ignored.

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