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

Another key element of the government’s plan to beat inflation was to address the skills shortage. And—surprise, surprise!—regional people seem to be left off the agenda for addressing the skills shortage. In fact, again, one of the very first acts of this government was to axe the FarmBis program, a program that has been in place for a number of years specifically to address skills in rural and regional areas. The Labor Party think that skilling farmers is not important. They have axed the program. They have also axed the $48 million horticultural and agricultural apprenticeship scheme. It is important to train apprentices, it seems, but not in horticulture and agriculture. Rural areas do not count. Then they have cut the funding for the living away from home allowance for school based apprenticeships—again, something that people who live in rural areas need. City people do not need it, because there is a school next door. It is the country people who have to live away from home and take advantage of these sorts of programs, and they have been axed. The Land newspaper calculated that two-thirds of the budget cuts announced by the finance minister last month targeted the one-third of Australians who live outside the metropolitan areas. Rarely have we seen such a heavy burden inflicted in such a disproportionate way.

If that were not enough, Labor last night moved to raid the coalition government’s $2 billion Communications Fund. This program was established to future-proof the telecommunication needs of rural, regional and remote Australians. Labor have robbed this fund to try and prop up their own broadband scheme, which the private sector has offered to build anyhow without government input. What Labor are doing is taking away the money that was put aside to deliver future technological advances to people who live out of the capital cities and duplicating it for people who live in the capital cities. This is a deliberate move by the Labor government to take $2 billion which was supposed to be spent in regional areas and spend it in the cities. It is pretty obvious where Labor’s priorities are. The areas that have already got the highest speeds of broadband are going to get more competition and duplication. The areas that have poor reception and poor capabilities for receiving broadband have had the money taken from them. Fortunately, again, we have been able to block this legislation in the Senate, and that is what ought to happen, because this has been an appalling attempt to rob people who have been made promises on commitments to the country, and to put that money into other areas. This is a real betrayal by the Labor government.

One of the things that really surprised me last night was to see the two Independent members, the member for New England and the member for Kennedy, both voting in favour of the government’s legislation. Two members who purport to represent regional areas crossed the floor to work with Labor to take $2 billion off their constituents and others. This was a disgraceful betrayal by the Independent members for New England and Kennedy, voting to take money away from their constituents.

The raid on the Communications Fund tells you a lot about the Prime Minister and his election-night promise to govern for all Australians. For the numerous people who watch parliament today, it might be interesting to know a little bit about the people who are on the Rudd government’s Expenditure Review Committee, the so-called razor gang. Of course, none of them live in country areas—that would be too much to ask. The Labor Party is not likely to ever have any senior ministers that come from a country area. But it is also interesting to note that in the 2006 census there were 300,000 people across Australia working in agriculture. If you divide that up, it is roughly the equivalent of Canberra. When you look at the list of 150 electorates across Australia and how many people work in agriculture, fisheries and forestry in those electorates, you get an interesting result. The Prime Minister’s seat of Griffith ranks 121st. It has the 121st highest number of people who work in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. The member for Melbourne’s seat comes in at 113th, just ahead of the Treasurer’s, which comes in at 111th. So none of those are what you would call strong rural electorates with representatives likely to be sympathetic to rural needs when the time comes to consider these important issues.

But perhaps what is most illuminating of the lot is the least agricultural electorate in Australia. Could anybody guess? Lo and behold, it is the electorate of the minister who was chosen to be the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The minister for agriculture has fewer farmers, fewer people involved in agriculture, than any electorate in Australia. This really shows the great sympathy that the Rudd Labor government has for people who live and work in rural and regional areas! They choose the least rural representative in the whole of the country to be minister for agriculture. Is it any wonder he knew nothing about wheat, knows nothing about crop growing, knows nothing about cattle and knows nothing about sheep? To his credit, he is trying to learn, but the reality is there is no fundamental sympathy on the government benches for anyone who lives outside a capital city, and the people of regional Australia need to be aware of the fact that when you elect a Labor government you do not elect a government that governs for all Australians; you elect a government that is city-centric, that is city biased and that will put all of its resources into that part of Australia, while struggling families who live outside the capital cities will go without.

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