Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has a lot on her plate with the avian flu situation at the moment—and I commend her for her work to ensure that we are, as a country, on top of that—but, Minister, why oh why, through the chair, have you cut, in the budget, $191.6 million for pest eradication? There are more feral pigs than there are people in this country. We've got a mouse plague in Western Australia. We've got rabbits everywhere and foxes out of control—and what does the Labor government do? Well, it cuts money away from—

It's true, Minister—eradication measures through the states and through councils and through regional areas. And, not only that, we had a prime minister who told the public one thing prior to the election, and then the Treasurer did another thing on budget night. This is hard labour, and the government is inflicting it upon the people of Australia—the small-business people, the farmers, those people who keep the lights on, our miners. Indeed, it is a budget which has caused so much hardship and so much heartache, particularly in regional Australia. And last week—

Prime Minister, I know you're interjecting on me, and I'll take the interjection. But last week why did you spend $430 million buying more water out of productive use for our farmers that could have used it to grow food?