Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always important, after expressions of sadness, that we throw some joy and light into our lives, and that is what I have chosen to do. I woke up today one of the most excited men in the Australian bush. Do you know why? It was because of the good news story of last night for all of those terrific people who live in provincial Australia—Western Australia, the western parts of my state and some of the other areas. Senator Collins—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President—despite everything positive that you could have said about these changes in education—not just the stuff announced by Senator Birmingham the other day but the $44 million we are putting into supporting isolated families with the education of their children and the $15 million being put into regional university hubs—despite all the positive things that you could have said about education, you did not. I will tell you why you are unhappy. It is because you are now witnessing a government that for the first time can declare, with evidence, that we are going to return the economy of this nation back to a surplus. Remember Mr Swan's assertions?

Forty-seven times he declared we would return to a surplus—47 times—and 47 times he failed. So whether you like it or not, I intend to devote my time to talking about the good news stuff that came in the budget last night for our country, for our nation, and, most importantly, with a slant and an emphasis on what is happening in the bush and in regional and rural Australia—the place that nourishes every single one of us in Australia, the place that produces the great wealth, the place that balances our accounts and the place where we have had an increase in agricultural soft commodities.

I have got to tell you—I am going to lay it on the table and I said it in a radio interview just recently—this is where Barnaby Joyce and the Nationals, with their colleagues here in the coalition and the Liberal Party, have delivered. We have delivered: we are rewarding people in rural and regional Australia for the efforts that they have put in. They have had a tough time of it, and it is about time they can pick up a telephone and use it like every one of you can. That is why we spent $2.7 billion on Sky Muster. It is about time that they can get a good-quality, cutting-edge education for their children. It is something you get for a remote fraction of what it costs our families in the bush.

I know it absolutely irks you to see that we have been able to lift, for example, agriculture, one of the great pillars of this nation's economy. We have lifted its performance by 23 per cent—$60 billion worth of exports of soft commodities. This is in the face of messages that we get from the Labor Party and the Greens, who resist aspects to do with our trade agreements. They were against the TPP. They were against clauses that existed in our Korean, Japanese and Chinese trade agreements. The opposition and the Greens are people who do not want to see people in the bush get ahead. They resent the fact that money has been spent on the inland rail. We have heard them talk about it. All they want to talk about is putting a cross-river crossing somewhere here and a rail link between this suburb and that suburb. They are too tired to pedal their bike out to the airport that is 25 minutes away. They want an eight-lane highway out there but they want our people in the bush to flog themselves to get their commodities.

Do you know what? It costs more to get commodities from some parts of the bush to the Port of Melbourne or the Port of Brisbane than from some of those ports to the Middle East. We are finally about to put an end to that. This is a dream that has come to realisation with our inland rail project and the $8.4 billion commitment from this coalition government. I have to tell you: after this budget came down last night, you people are going to have to work a lot harder. There is not one single vote for you inside the Great Dividing Range any longer, because those people have realised that, with our efforts to try and bring these things into play, all you have done is resist.

We have seen my Senate colleagues from the Labor Party vote in block to support a motion to close down the black coal industry in my home state of Queensland. So I have got to tell you: all the people in central Queensland, all those good people who live in the Galilee Basin, the tens of thousands of businesses in Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton and Gladstone are watching this very closely. For those who missed it, I have made it my mission to go out and fill in the gaps so they know exactly what sort of support they are getting from their senators in Queensland and indeed our federal members up there in the Labor Party.

The benefits of this inland rail are going to be phenomenal. It is a project that will include construction of over 1,700 kilometres of rail. If you happen to be living in these places—Albury, Wagga, Parkes and Moree; in my own home state, Inglewood, Millmerran, Toowoomba, in particular, where I happen to live and all the way through the Lockyer Valley to the port of the Brisbane—you will be celebrating today that, finally, every one of those local communities, every one of those regional and district economies, are going to get a lift here that they have not seen since they settled those districts in the 1800s. This is the biggest uplift they have ever had. If you want to park that beside the $5 billion development of the northern Australia fund, if you want to park it beside the $2.5 billion dams package which is going to store water and bring prosperity to regions at the moment that are struggling from the drought—and I know you hate hearing it—and the cessation of the live cattle—