Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I certainly welcome the opportunity to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2005-2006 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2005-2006 as they form part of the government’s program, which has been a very responsible one from an economic point of view. This is a government that has created employment opportunities. It is a government that has created growth in real wages and has managed to keep inflation and interest rates low. So we really have a very proud economic record, and these appropriation bills form part of the strategy that underpins that economic record.

It is interesting to note that the member for Fraser was trying to draw some comparisons as to the relative performance on unemployment of the coalition and the current opposition. The people of Australia are not silly: they made their judgment in 1996 on the performance of the Labor government and they have repeated their judgment over a range of elections right up until the 2004 election, when they believed that the government best placed to keep the economy strong, the political party best placed to drive the economy harder so that we could achieve better economic outcomes for families and the whole community, was the coalition. Certainly people have little faith in the ability of the Australian Labor Party to manage the economy. They have passed that judgment time and time again. They have little faith in the Australian Labor Party to keep interest rates low. They have little faith in the Australian Labor Party to generate jobs. These appropriation bills are part of an ongoing strategy to build a stronger Australia and a stronger community.

I believe one of the major factors behind strong growth in regional and rural areas is infrastructure, and it is something that I want to focus on during my address tonight. I refer to physical infrastructure, such as road and rail, and also to infrastructure such as technology—vitally important matters to the people of regional and rural areas. If we are going to have strong investment in regional areas, people have to know that they can operate a business on a competitive basis and export their products around the country and the world from their regional location. A strong focus on infrastructure is part of that and is very much a strategy that this government has adopted.

Entrepreneurs in a range of locations in my electorate, such as some of the smaller centres like Bellingen or Bowraville, can service customers around the world through high-speed internet. It is very much a focus of this government to ensure that regional and rural areas have access to the sorts of telecommunications services that will enable regional Australia to remain competitive not only now but into the future.

Harking back for a moment to the issue of roads, one of the programs which The Nationals have been very much focused on is the Roads to Recovery program. This program has strengthened local road infrastructure in a range of local government areas around the country. It is interesting to note that most items that come out of regional and rural areas to be exported from this country begin their journey on a local road. That is why Roads to Recovery is vitally important. This program has enabled many local councils to improve the condition of road infrastructure for their ratepayers. I believe the success of the program is very much focused on the fact that it is local councils deciding local priorities, not Macquarie Street, Sydney, deciding what is right for regional communities and skimming off a substantial fee to go into bloated state bureaucracies. It is actually local councils on the ground making good local decisions because they understand their local area.

Another important area of infrastructure that concerns my electorate is the Pacific Highway. I recently distributed a newsletter inviting constituents to subscribe to regular progress updates on the state of the road. I also called on the members of my community to sign a letter to Mr Joe Tripodi, the state roads minister, who has become known around my electorate as ‘Slow’ Joe Tripodi because when ‘Slow’ Joe is on the job nothing happens quickly. Whenever ‘Slow’ Joe is around, there is one thing you are sure of: a grab-bag of excuses. No matter what the problem is, it is the federal government’s fault or someone else’s fault. If it is raining, it is the federal government’s fault. If the road is not finished, it is the federal government’s fault or there is some other reason. When ‘Slow’ Joe is about, there is always an excuse.

One of the projects that I have particularly focused on is called the Bonville deviation. Regrettably, notable is the large number of fatalities that have occurred in that section of road. We have had some 13 deaths since 2001, and the material that I have sent out to the electorate is encouraging people to write a letter to Joe or sign a letter to Joe, telling him to get on with the job, to get off his backside and stop whingeing and whining and make the Bonville deviation happen. This road is way overdue. It was originally planned in 1998, and the New South Wales state government announced it would fully fund the Bonville deviation. It was due for completion in 2003. ‘Slow’ Joe is a bit behind time on that one and we are certainly working hard to keep him accountable.

We have seen some action in Bonville. We have seen the start of some safety works, which is welcome—$5 million in safety works—but was ‘Slow’ Joe responsible for it? No. Who funded it? The federal government had to fund that. In addition, the federal government was so focused on the importance of the Bonville deviation that it offered ‘Slow’ Joe $30 million to advance the works and make things happen quicker. You would expect that, if any spending minister responsible for roads was offered $30 million to get things happening quickly, they would accept it. What did ‘Slow’ Joe do? He knocked it back. Today is 14 February and we have been waiting some 168 days since the $30 million was offered to the state roads minister—and he is still yet to take it up.

Remarkable as it is that a roads minister might reject such an offer, his excuse is even more remarkable. He gave the tenderers for the Bonville deviation some 13 weeks to submit their proposals. Then he gave the bureaucracy of the RTA some six months to choose between the tenderers. You may ask: was there a Melbourne Cup field of tenderers? It could be a very complicated job with 50 tenderers and lots of paperwork to go through to pick the one that would give the best value for taxpayers. How many tenderers did ‘Slow’ Joe have to pick from? Two! He has allowed his bureaucracy six months to choose between tenderer A and tenderer B—so committed is he to take up the $30 million offered by federal roads minister Lloyd to get this work started. It is no wonder that he is known as ‘Slow Joe Tripodi’ around my electorate.

There is a tremendous contrast between the federal roads minister, who is focused on making things happen with $5 million for safety works and an offer of $30 million to accelerate the Bonville deviation, and the state roads minister, who really wants to see things happen at a very slow pace indeed. Minister Lloyd and Minister Tripodi are like cheese and chalk. I have been working hard to bring to the attention of all the people in my electorate the need to keep pressure on Mr Tripodi. I have been working with my state counterpart, Andrew Fraser, the member for Coffs Harbour. He has been putting pressure on Mr Tripodi, but it is a tough ask. Mr Tripodi is very keen to sit on his backside and live up to his reputation of being ‘Slow’ Joe.

Another important thing about the highway is that we have had massive growth in heavy vehicle movement, which has increased by some 34 per cent between 2001 and 2004. I am delighted that we have been able to negotiate under AusLink some $960 million of state and federal money to be invested in the road over the three years between 2006 and 2009, because there is another important stretch of road which vitally needs upgrading: the Sapphire to Woolgoolga road to the north of Coffs Harbour—some 15 kilometres of road with 37 junctions. With 2,000 heavy vehicles thundering down that road every day, a massively growing population and lots of people commuting to Coffs Harbour from the outlying northern beach suburbs, it is a disaster waiting to happen—a mix of high-speed heavy vehicle movement through-traffic mixing with local residents making their way to work. It is vital we get that road upgraded as quickly as possible. I am delighted that we have been able to include that project within the next three-year funding plan. It is an absolutely vital project and one that my electorate is very focused on.

In talking about infrastructure, rail is also vitally important. It is very difficult if you upgrade a road network and you do not do something about rail, because you will only clog up the road network due to increased traffic. So the federal government is not only focusing on the Pacific Highway and road infrastructure but is investing some $450 million to upgrade the east coast rail line between Sydney and Brisbane, aiming to take some 120,000 containers a year off road onto rail by the year 2011. The federal government through AusLink is very focused on ensuring that we have the sort of transport infrastructure that will make Australia a strong economy and also make business competitive in regional and rural areas through a combination of highway upgrades with a strong focus on rail—a focus that has been missing. The New South Wales government has allowed the state rail network to deteriorate to a terrible state. The federal government has had to take a lease over the rail line to get this vital piece of infrastructure going and, through the ARTC, manage rail infrastructure in an efficient way so that rail carries its share of the total transport task.

I would now like to turn to telecommunications. I mentioned earlier the vital nature of telecommunications services for doing business in regional and rural areas, which need to be able to use high-speed internet to access customers around the world. We have, I believe, a good story to tell in relation to telecommunications. We have seen Telstra roll out infrastructure around the country. I think it is important that we move to full private ownership of Telstra. We have seen the telecommunications changes that have occurred to date make some dramatic improvements to the Australian economy. The Allen Consulting Group report for the Australian Communications Authority said that Australia’s economy was some $10.3 billion bigger in 2003-04 than it would have been without the introduction of telecommunications competition in 1997—a vital statistic—that small business would be some $2.16 billion better off in 2003-04 than it would have been without the introduction of competition at that time and that an additional 29,600 jobs have been created in the Australian economy as a result of competition.

I see that the member for Hinkler has just come into the chamber. He is very focused on the important role that telecommunications plays in rural and regional Australia. He is very focused on the importance to local businesses, local schools and local hospitals of having quality telecommunications. And this government has met that challenge. We have recently seen that over $3 billion is to be invested through the $1.1 billion Connect Australia program and the $2 billion communications future fund, which will ensure that regional and rural areas have quality telecommunications not only now but also in the future.

In my electorate, 29 exchange areas have been enabled for ADSL since the beginning of 2003. Over the same period, 26 mobile phone towers have been built and we have seen a dramatic improvement in mobile phone coverage and a dramatic improvement in high-speed internet roll-out. We still have a lot more work to do. The National Party is very focused on the fact that this process has to continue and is vitally important.

I would like to talk for a moment on the issue of health. The National Party is very much focused on the rural health strategy—

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