Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

You have had a cut in your administered funds. Other departments have had cuts in programs but none of them have had their administered funds cut back. Presumably you will still have to meet your share of the increased efficiency dividends. That will be a real challenge for the department. Again, I hope that it is not a demonstration of an unhealthy attitude in Treasury and Finance towards the activities of your department, Minister. Having been a minister in that portfolio in the past, I guess I have had some personal experience. I suspect that you may go through some of the same sorts of issues.

Drought is still an issue. I hope it disappears for the whole of the nation quickly. We do need to have a constructive look at future drought policy. That needs to be undertaken in good faith and with an expression of support by the government. The people of Australia will stand behind their fellow Australians in times of difficulty. We will try and find ways through and ways to manage things better in the future. But we have to actually believe in agriculture and believe it is important for Australia to produce food for our own population and to sell to others around the world, and that agriculture remains a priority industry. It must not become a backwater where no money is spent on training, where the apprenticeship and horticulture programs do not dare move and where research and development, which is clearly so important for the future, is torn away.

I want to say a little more about the range of cuts that the finance minister has made to industries, but I will leave that for a later time. I want to talk a little also—

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