Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for New England for putting this on the agenda today as a matter of public importance; I certainly appreciate being able to contribute to this debate. Effective rural policy now and in the future is underpinned by effective governance of this country. Unless you have effective governance and good economic management of the economy, it will be very hard for people in rural Australia, our farming sector, to have and implement even the best of policies. I am reminded of the economic management of this government and what we have achieved in the last 10½ years, going on 11 now, and the levels of interest rates today compared with what they were in that disastrous period when Labor were in government, when we had ‘the recession we had to have’, which was the statement made by the then Treasurer Paul Keating, who later became the Labor Prime Minister. Under a Labor government’s mismanagement of this economy, official interest rates rose to 17½ per cent. Unless you have good economic management, it is impossible for people on the land and in our rural communities to implement effective rural policy now or into the future.

One of the most useful, valuable tools for anyone on the land today as they prepare for, and have in the past been preparing for, drought is a reserve of cash. Since coming to power, this government has reinstated an effective mechanism that is tax effective in the form of Farm Management Deposits. I am reminded at this time that when Labor was in government the old scheme that had been implemented in a previous coalition government was taken away by the Labor Party. The income equalisation deposits, as they were known then, were taken away and the legislation was repealed. That is not effective rural policy. What is effective rural policy is what this government has done in relation to the cash reserve to assist our farm sector prepare for drought. The Farm Management Deposits today are a better tool than the old IEDs. They are more effective, provide greater flexibility and allow farmers to utilise the cash surpluses when they can achieve them and put them aside for when they are required in a drought. I acknowledge that not all farmers have been able to do that since we implemented those Farm Management Deposits under the Agriculture—Advancing Australia policy, but it is effective rural policy now and it will allow farmers into the future to better cope with extremes of seasonal conditions and downturns in commodity prices.

Another effective rural policy now and into the future is this government’s Roads to Recovery program. One of the things that are important in our rural community is being able to bring commodities from the farm to the market. Because of the effective economic management of this government, we have been able to implement the Roads to Recovery program and, in the last budget, we doubled the allocation of funds to local governments under the Roads to Recovery program. That is what effective rural policy is now and into the future: being able to assist these communities with their infrastructure—in this case, the road infrastructure that otherwise would have been borne by local ratepayers, which, of course, becomes a burden on the farmers. That is what effective rural policy is: being able to assist local governments to upgrade roads in rural communities, to help bring down the cost of doing business and to transport goods faster and more efficiently. At this point, I want to point out that the Roads to Recovery program was an initiative of the former Deputy Prime Minister and former Leader of the National Party John Anderson. All local governments across Australia—cities and county towns—are benefiting from that program. That is effective rural policy that is a legacy of this government. Another effective rural policy is the extension of mobile phones across Australia. Along the highways and the byways, out into rural communities, to many parts of my own electorate and in the middle of the mulga lands and the Mitchell grasslands of Central Western Queensland there is effective mobile phone coverage because of this government’s initiatives.

At this point I am reminded of the policy of the Labor Party, prior to this government coming to power, when they abolished the very effective and useful analog mobile phone service without an effective replacement. That is policy failure for all Australians that the Labor Party introduced. Effective rural policy now and into the future is what we have been able to do with assistance through Connect Australia, Clever Networks and mobile phone extension subsidies to help the rollout of mobile phone technology into many rural communities and across our rural roads.

Another effective rural policy now and into the future is being able to assist those children of people who live in rural communities to gain access to basic education. Only this week we have had the Isolated Children’s Parents Association in parliament, seeing many members of parliament on both sides of the House. I would like to hear from the Labor Party whether they support what the organisation is trying to achieve in their discussions with government in relation to access firstly, to basic education through the Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme, which we increased after the last election to be on average about 55 per cent of average boarding costs across Australia. We never hear the Labor Party talking about that.

I would be interested to hear whether the Labor Party are going to talk about the Isolated Children’s Parents Association, who have been around this parliament this week working on another initiative which I strongly support. We need to extend that assistance for students who are geographically isolated and have to go away for postsecondary education to gain access to perhaps a TAFE or technical college education, further education, upskilling, or university. We allow it in this place for those students to gain access to secondary education. Many of them will be leaving secondary education at the end of this year as we near the end of the academic year and considering their future, going on into further education. These students, whether they are from families on the land or whether they are workers’ children living in rural and regional communities—for parts of my electorate it might be the child of the local police sergeant or the CEO of the local council—are seeking a payment from government.

I would be interested to hear whether the opposition would support this if we were able to achieve funding of an access payment to assist those students from rural Australia who have to leave home to go on to further education post their secondary education. That is effective rural policy now and into the future because it will help students from rural Australia to be upskilled. Our assistance through the Assistance for Isolated Children Scheme helps children who have to leave home to gain access to secondary education. The fact that we increased that allowance after the last federal election—a commitment we gave before the election—is certainly testimony to this government’s approach to good and effective rural policy to help communities across rural Australia.

I could go on but time is now limited. I want to close by saying that the drought support that this government is giving to our rural communities, our farmers, is invaluable. The extension that we have made this week is welcome and it is because we have got the economy in such a strong position that we as a nation and we as a government are able to provide that additional support that is so important to keeping the fabric of our rural communities together. (Time expired)

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