Anne Webster (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development. Will the Deputy Prime Minister inform the House how the Morrison-McCormack government is building resilience in regional Australia? Is he aware of any alternatives?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Resilience' is a very important word, and the people of Mallee are very resilient, and they need to be. Regional Australia can be its best self, and it will be under our policies and the development that we are putting into it as Liberals and as Nationals.

The Sunraysia Modernisation Project No. 2 is delivering for the people of Mildura and the Sunraysia area. I see the member for Watson nodding. He says that it's a good project. It is, and that's why we backed it. This $6 million project is creating 33 full-time equivalent jobs. It is going to improve the amount of table grapes grown in the Mildura, the Sunraysia area. Indeed, it is going to increase citrus. It's creating jobs. It's creating confidence; it's creating optimism; and it's creating hope. That's what our policies do.

When it comes to water, the Scottsdale dam in north-east Tasmania started in late 2018, and that 8,600 megalitre facility is going to be fully on line, fully commissioned, in the next few weeks. The people of that area have backed themselves, and we've backed them too. It's a $57 million project, and we've put $25 million towards it—because we are building dam infrastructure. We're putting in the pipelines; we're plumbing Australia. Right across this nation, we're doing it everywhere.

I'm asked about alternatives. Many of those on the front bench were in the government in June 2011 when the then Labor government, as a kneejerk reaction, shut down the live cattle trade. I know yesterday the Indonesian President Widodo was here, talking up trade, as you would expect the President of Indonesia—our near northern friends—would be. Those people opposite, who were in that government at that time, as a kneejerk reaction to a television program shut down the live trade just like that—overnight. They didn't even bother to pick up the phone to the Indonesian government and say that they were doing it. And there are people in northern Australia and Western Australia who still are not back in full employment because of that decision made by many of those opposite in that particular government.

We don't make decisions like that on a whim. We are clear, practical, pragmatic thinkers. We are certainly there for regional development, and we're getting the job done. We don't make kneejerk reaction decisions to television programs. We get on with the job of building the irrigation projects for the people of Sunraysia and Mildura and elsewhere across this nation. We're in there fighting hard, as part of the $100 billion infrastructure program right across this nation. And you're all benefiting from it; you should get on board and talk it up.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Deputy Prime Minister's time has concluded. The member for Rankin.