Mike Kelly (Eden-Monaro, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Canberra for bringing forward this motion. It is extremely important to understand that this is an assault on what was created as the 'bush capital'. It seems to be something that the Nationals and the Liberals have forgotten in this process. This whole region is one economic, social, health and education entity that supports the economy of the whole of regional southern New South Wales. The coalition are, effectively, launching an assault on one region in order to pork-barrel for areas that they seem to control. It is not creating new jobs in regional Australia; it is stealing from Peter to pay Paul. What we need to have is a strategy for creating new jobs in rural and regional Australia. It is very fortuitous that I am standing next to the member for Grayndler, who understands that reinforcing rural and regional Australia was about addressing issues such as infrastructure and investing in good-quality, value-adding infrastructure that would grow those economies—things like the Bega bypass that the member assisted me with.

We have to understand that we are robbing this region and destroying the strategic weight that Canberra gives it. That strategic weight is what has enabled us to attract the international airport and the sectors that have come with that. My primary producers are taking advantage of that strategic weight and opening up that international sector. From the cherry growers in Young to oyster growers on the coast, we are seeing a huge opportunity for our primary producers to get their product on plates in Southeast Asia and to really bite into that growing middle class market with good-quality fresh produce. That will be lost to us if we see this destruction of the Canberra economy.

I will also lose the driving holiday-makers that travel all around this region and give such a boost to our tourism industry. It really annoys me when we see people like the Premier New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, slagging off Canberra when she completely ignores the fact that the Canberra region supports southern New South Wales not only economically, as I have mentioned, but also through health and education support that it provides to my communities and the many communities in this region. So she should be a bit more appreciative of the impact and the results delivered by Canberra that relieve burdens on her own budget and her own administration.

We already have substantial commuter traffic coming to Canberra from around the region—people from Queanbeyan, of course, Cooma, Bungendore, Yass, Goulburn, Braidwood, Murrumbateman, Gundaroo, Sutton, Collector, Michelago, Thredbo—if you drew a one-hour radius right around this area of Canberra, you would see that a vast number of people who work here and who are supported by the economy come from regional New South Wales. Twenty-seven thousand vehicles a day cross the border just from Queanbeyan alone. This government should be focusing on generating those new economies, as I said, and getting better education, better health and better NBN, improving productivity and resilience for our primary producers and getting their produce into regional markets. And this should be done now, not in 20 years through some of these dubious free-trade arrangements that they have entered into.

We have suffered enough under the coalition through their forced mergers in New South Wales, their mishandling of this greyhounds issue, loss of services—particularly through their attacks on Centrelink, providing regional advisers to my veterans; my electorate offices have effectively become adjuncts to Centrelink, handling hundreds and hundreds of complaints by people who are in great distress over the effects of this federal government's attack on services that are provided to rural and regional Australia. We have seen post offices close. Banks are closing in my region. We are seeing railway stations close. And our community is well and truly fed up with the total neglect it is seeing from coalition governments at the federal and state level. That is why people like Pauline Hanson and Donald Trump get the results they do: because the grievances of the people are not being addressed by governments they once had faith in.

Also banks: we have seen complete dropping of the ball in relation to dealing with banking issues. My farmers come up to me complaining of the way they have been treated by banks and are crying out for a royal commission into the way banks conduct business for our farmers. This government is flying in the face of cost-benefit analysis on why these moves should not actually happen and the Productivity Commission's own analysis that says this is no good, at a time of so-called budget repair, when we are forking out $60 million to try to move these departments. And how many departments do we have, to go around the whole of Australia? This is a joke. It is a joke to pork barrel, and it does not help this country or rural and regional Australia. (Time expired)

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