Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Ah, my favourite rural Labor person: the member for Richmond—the one who fights so hard for the 17 per cent of her constituents who vote Green, the one who dies in a ditch for those Green votes, for those hardy rural souls from Byron Bay as they toil away over their hydroponics in the back shed. She is such a great advocate for the 17 per cent of people in her electorate who vote Green. But I do not want to be negative.

We are talking about this budget, and what I like about this budget is that this government treats rural Australia as if it has a future. This government treats rural Australia with respect. This government does not watch a Green-inspired program on the ABC and shut down a cattle trade, decimating not only a whole industry but also a couple of states and territories.

This government respects and understands regional Australia—not only in areas such as this, but in R&D. There is real money now in research and development, because we understand that Australian farmers and Australian regional communities have a future. For those of you who may be new, we sat here for two terms with this government and heard ministers such as Burke and others talk about farmers in slow voices, because they needed to help farmers to adapt to climate change. How were they going to do that? 'Oh, we will close down the cattle industry—that'll help.' They sacrificed the aspirations of rural Australia in order to get the vote from the member for Melbourne, up here behind us, because he had such a struggling urban electorate in inner-city Melbourne that they had to pacify him.

With telecommunications, Minister Conroy actually came to Goolma—it is in the outreaches, 25 kilometres from Mudgee. In six years, despite the fact that the minister had sat in Goolma Hall with 150 very angry people, Labor did not fund even one tower. We are talking about an NBN network that delivered no services to my electorate in six years—and we still have people who cannot have a telephone. The hypocrisy! I admire the member for Hunter's attempt at humour, because it is better than his attempt at politics. (Time expired)

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