Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to talk about community and community services. Community is a matter of public importance. If there is one thing that I know and understand about the electorate that I represent it is that we are made up of communities. It always amuses me that, in a lot of ways, the Greens represent the richest electorate in Australia. Then probably comes the Liberal Party, representing some of richer ones—some of the country Libs not so—and then comes the Labor Party. But, as the National Party and country MPs would know, we represent some of the poorest in our society. So we have a very strong interest on this side in delivering community services but we also understand that the people who live in our communities want a hand up, not a hand out.

If I think about the communities I represent, we have great organisations such as Sunassist where people voluntarily drive cars and pick up people who are unable to get the groceries, go to the doctor and to health appointments. We have great organisations like the Christian Emergency Food Centre. I was in there the other day and the federal government gave this organisation $50,000. Just think about this for a moment—you want to talk about communities; you want to listen for a moment. We have listened to you for a while, but listen to this: $50,000 is all they get. They have 70 volunteers and they get food—sometimes schools donate food, package it and send it in. They have people come in—people who might be victims of domestic violence, people who might be drought affected farmers. There was a lady out the back who was packing food parcels. She was 89 years old—now that is about community.

The people in my community are saying: 'We want the opportunity to grow the net worth of our town. We want jobs for younger Australians. We want a free trade agreement, frankly, so we can open the markets up.' Those things create wealth in the poorest communities in Australia and, when you have got wealth in those communities, you empower them to have the time and the dollars to commit to building their communities.

Communities are built from the grassroots up; they are not built from the federal government throwing money at them. That is what our side of parliament understands. If we can create the framework for those communities to prosper, they will prosper. They will do it for themselves, as opposed to the other side of the parliament who simply wanted to shut down those rural communities. You talk about six months forward estimates: try running a cattle business and then shutting the whole trade in 24 hours.

You have got to build the framework. That is exactly what we have been doing: we have been building the telecommunications framework; we have been building the road framework; and we have been creating trade opportunities. This is all about building up communities.

If I think about the dollars that we have committed—federal dollars that have gone into my community—it has been substantial. So not only have we created the framework but we have also ensured that we have picked up from the bottom. There is a very high Indigenous population in the electorate of Mallee. I can put my finger on direct funding of over $20 million. I can put my finger on—and this is a lesson on community—an oncology wing. Here we had a community that had the worst five-year survival rates for cancer. They are in the process of raising a million dollars of their own. The federal government has then come along and given them another million dollars. The only million dollars that is still to come to the table is from the Victorian Labor Party. They have not committed it.

If you want to talk about communities and look at how you can lift standards of living, I would encourage—and I see a Labor Party member from Victoria there—you to talk to your state colleagues and say: 'The community has raised a million dollars. The federal government has raised a million dollars.' It is time that you talked to your Labor counterparts in Victoria to chip in their one-third.

We are building communities. Not only are we building communities; we are building opportunities and growing economies. We all know that, if we have a strong and robust economy, it becomes the engine room so we have jobs and wealth. And, out of those jobs and wealth, we create an energy in those communities that brings prosperity. That is what we are doing. That is what our side of parliament fully understands and that is what we are going to deliver to the Australian people.

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