Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bendigo for her contribution and express gratitude to her for pointing out the regional members from the government who represent rural constituents. I say to those Labor regional members: fight for your electorates, fight for your rural communities. You have the member for Rankin as your Treasurer—a Brisbane city based Treasurer. When I was in government, I had the member for Kooyong, but at least I knew that that Melbourne city based Treasurer understood regional Australia, because he'd actually worked in regional Australia. He'd worked on a station. He understood regional Australia. More to the point, he cared about regional Australia. I don't suspect that the member for Rankin quite understands regional Australia like the member for Kooyong, the former Treasurer, did.

It's up to the Labor members to go into where the Expenditure Review Committee is meeting; it's up to them, when the budgets are being prepared, to go in there and fight for regional Australia! But, unfortunately, those members—those ALP members from regional areas—are not. Proof positive of all of the regional programs that have been cut is proof positive that they're not fighting for regional Australia. It's up to those members to do just that—to go in there and fight. They need to fight for the Building Better Regions Fund, which has been abolished. They need to fight for the Stronger Communities Program, which has been abolished. They need to fight for the Local Roads and Community Infrastructure program, which has been abolished. They need to fight for more water infrastructure and to fight against the 450 gigalitres that are going to be pushed down the Murray-Darling system and cause such heartache for those irrigation towns and for those communities that rely so much on water. They're going to have that water stripped away.

Earlier, I was talking to Brent Finlay. He's a good man. He's from Stanthorpe. He said to me that Stanthorpe is going to be the biggest town in Australia to run out of water in the next 10 years. Now, I fought hard to make sure that there was money on the table—federal grants—to get the Emu Swamp Dam. But, unfortunately, that side of politics doesn't believe in building dams and doesn't believe in water infrastructure.

I hear the member for Lyons interjecting. Well, I built a dam; I built a dam in your state of Tasmania—it's called Scottsdale. Go and look it up! But we need to fund the Emu Swamp Dam, and we need to fund it because it's 12,000-megalitres of water infrastructure that's going to provide water security for Stanthorpe, with a population of 6,000, and it's going to provide for industry and agriculture. It's up to those regional members opposite to fight for industry and to fight for water security—to fight for irrigation and industry. But they're not.

As Brent Finlay said, there are ways to do this. There are ways around state governments, but those opposite don't seem to want to do that. All they want to do is abolish programs—abolish regional programs which have been so beneficial. And they know it! In their heart of hearts, those members from country areas know how these are just so advantageous for regional communities. Programs such as—

See this speech in context