Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to hear the member for Shortland say that this budget delivered for the people of Shortland, because it sure as hell did not deliver for the people of Groom nor the people of regional Australia. I am comforted that at least the member for Shortland thinks her members have done well. I am sure she has nobody who buys four-wheel drive cars to do their business and no-one who, after work, decides that the easiest way to have a drink would be to have a premix drink rather than have to buy a bottle of something and be inexact in the way they mix it. I am pleased that all the people in Shortland, as the Treasurer said, are happy. I am very pleased about that.

Since the Rudd Labor government’s budget was handed down I have had time to digest it and reread it many times, but what was in it for regional Australia and particularly for my electorate of Groom has not changed. This is a budget of betrayal and let-down to the people of rural and regional Australia, people whom I have had the great honour of representing for over nine years in this parliament and, prior to that, probably another 10 years in various forums.

It is a glaring feature of this budget that there has been a glaring absence of anything of substance for regional and rural Australia, the people I represent. The budget is a blatant failure of this government to live up to the expectations it cultivated, particularly the Prime Minister’s claim to govern for all Australians. This is not a budget for all Australians. This may be a budget for the people of Shortland, and I would actually take the opportunity if it comes my way to go down and ask some of those people in the good member’s electorate if they think it is a good budget for them, because I am sure we would find there that there are people who know enough about the importance of rural and regional Australia to say that if this budget is not good for all of Australia then it is not a good budget.

This budget favours some at the expense of others. It is a budget that this government has used to drive its own ideological purposes at the price of breaking faith with the people in regional Australia. Instead of governing for all Australians, this government has actually delivered a budget that rips apart a number of key programs that have been ensuring positive outcomes for regional areas and, in the process, it rips the heart and soul out of regional Australia.

Much like the government itself, this budget is trumped up for the sake of appearances but, if you look a little deeper, the tightly spun image begins to unravel. Take infrastructure, an area in which this government truly let down the people I represent and the people who are near and dear to me, the people of regional Australia. The budget is talking up the government’s Building Australia Fund, which has been given the broad objective of covering transport and communications infrastructure. But other than a sweeping announcement there is no evidence to back that up. The government has given no indication of what projects will fall under this fund, nor has it given any guidelines for how the money will be allocated and administered and accounted for. The fund actually swipes $2 billion from the Communications Fund, which existed expressly to ensure a high-speed standard of rural and regional telecommunications, which seemingly undermines at least half of the stated purpose of the fund. In doing that, it has also condemned the people of regional Australia to a poor internet access regime and a long wait for whatever broadband internet they receive.

In referring to communications infrastructure, this government seems to be confining its focus to city infrastructure—again, at the expense of more regional parts of Australia. Add to this the government’s own admission that its only action on delivering the Building Australia Fund was to conduct feasibility studies and the gloss does start to fade substantially. How long do the people of Australia have to wait before this government actually decides to govern rather than to commission more reviews and hang out with celebrities?

All the while, the Rudd government is remaining equally as secret about the future of the previous government’s forward-thinking roads and rail program, AusLink 2, and how that fund is to be allocated. This is an issue of vital importance to my electorate of Groom, because the people of this electorate are entitled to the $700 million allocated in the May 2007 budget to start building the second range crossing, a critical highway. But the Rudd Labor government seems determined to renege on this fully funded budget commitment as well. It seems that it is not enough for this government to operate on a blanket freeze frame mode that prevents business and whole sectors from moving forward; the government is now applying its obsession with reviews retrospectively and claiming that a firm decision to build the Toowoomba second range crossing under AusLink 2 must now be subject—and yes, you have probably guessed it—to another review. It is a nonsensical claim, given that the previous Howard government had already decided to build this road. The Rudd government cannot hide under the cover of its reviews and summits forever.

It is not just highway users who are feeling let down by this government and the budget which it has delivered; it is also the many primary schools across my electorate and across Australia. They have real reason to feel betrayed by the Rudd Labor government’s decision to abolish the highly successful Investing in Our Schools Program. That was a program that allocated local schools the opportunity to take control of their own destiny—and, in my electorate, more than $8 million worth of their own destiny. It gave them the power to choose projects they wanted to develop or new equipment they wanted to purchase, based on their own day-to-day experience in that school and the needs of their own students. The program did not rely on state Labor governments to make up their minds as to whether or not a school in Cambooya or Bowenville or Toowoomba should receive funds for things like air conditioning, computers or a whole range of facilities and amenities which they simply would not get under the slow-moving and city-centric Queensland Labor government.

It is particularly galling, given that the Rudd government speak incessantly about the so-called education revolution. As primary schools in my electorate are discovering, the Rudd government have no place to promise these schools an education revolution. If they do, as they are, then the schools in my electorate will find that there is no place for them in this education revolution. In fact, this so-called revolution is nothing more than a deceptive political exercise. In the meantime, it is high schools that are finding out that if they are to be part of this so-called revolution then it will come at a substantial cost, because this government is short-changing them on the laptop policy and leaving local schools to meet fundamental costs like connections and electricity. Some revolution! I think it is fairly revolting, to be quite honest.

This budget is also a tale of woe in the area of water because projects like the Community Water Grants program have also felt the sharp edge of the government’s razor gang. It is hard to determine what is driving this government to slash a program that has empowered residents to address one of the biggest issues facing their own communities and others right across Australia. I have had the pleasure of inspecting most of the programs that have been allocated funds in the electorate of Groom. They are high-quality programs and, most importantly, they work, saving hundreds of millions of litres of water every year. While the many local schools, sporting clubs and community groups in my electorate and across the entire country may be relieved they took the chance to receive support for their endeavours while they could, it is a slap in the face to see those efforts devalued and their example unable to be followed by other community groups who want to do their part to save this valuable resource—the water that they need every day. It is inconceivable that this government would slash this effective program without so much as a whisper of it in the budget and without any plans to replace this program—or none that we can find, but perhaps that, too, will be subject to another review.

This is all part of the broader picture that shows that this is a government that has no plans for regional Australia and is intent on punishing those sections of the Australian community who do not vote for it. We hear words from those who sit on the government benches about conspicuous consumption. If you buy a vehicle worth more than a certain amount of money—and I am not sure why those who decide on conspicuous consumption only target motor vehicles, but let us hope they go no further—and if you are guilty, as was said in the other place earlier this week, of conspicuous consumption then you can be sure that the Labor Party will tax you for it.

If I can move to the Regional Partnerships program, there is even more evidence here that the Rudd Labor government is not interested in helping regional Australia. We can see the ultimate crystallisation of this government’s modus operandi. It is a government based on spin and image control. This is the very program that the Labor Party and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government have been denouncing as a slush fund and a pork-barrelling exercise. Mind you, the minister’s cries took on more of a hypocritical hew after I read this morning in the newspaper that Labor had poured 90 per cent of its own regional grants funding into electorates it already held or intended to win—90 per cent of $150 million went into those electorates. Notwithstanding this, the minister has repeatedly tarnished the reputation of programs and projects that have received funding under the Regional Partnerships program as being part of some sort of rort.

Last week the minister for infrastructure had to come clean, though, and concede that he had not even bothered to look into the program or into which specific projects had been funded. While the minister was out talking down the projects, and refusing to fight for the budget funds that were needed for them, the truth came out on television. It was only then that we saw some action—and are we surprised by that? Certainly not. Maybe we should get Kochie to ring the minister more often. It did not matter that the livelihoods of local businesses and communities were on the line. It did not matter that other communities had pledged their very own money and fundraised for these projects on the understanding that these grants had been secured. It did not matter that the blood, sweat and tears of local communities had been put into these projects. It did not matter to the minister until Kochie rang him. And then the minister thought, ‘The media are interested’—and we know how obsessed the government is with the media cycle—‘so perhaps I should go and have another look at them.’ The only thing that then mattered was how the storyline played out in the media. So, after a bit of bad PR, the government decided to do the right thing at long last and honour the funding for local community projects under the Regional Partnerships program.

Regardless of the motivation behind it, I welcome the government’s backflip on this issue. But now it has the responsibility to take the matter more seriously as it revives negotiations with affected community groups. Unfortunately, the signs that this is more than a token gesture are sparse, given that Labor has slashed more than $1 billion from regional Australia. Other than saving face on this issue, the Rudd government has distinguished itself only as a government that simply does not understand—either that or it does not care—about regional Australia and its people.

This budget is all about appearances and about the Labor Party’s longstanding ideological vendettas. This budget sets in motion the conditions to undermine the private health insurance sector, as we always knew it would, and place fatal pressure on the already overburdened public health system. It is a budget that divides the community along the lines of what this government defines as being rich. It is a budget that punishes larger families that live in rural areas who need to buy a four-wheel drive vehicle worth more than $57,000—those conspicuous consumers, those people guilty of conspicuous consumption, to use the words of the Labor Party. It is a budget that locks out the hardworking families who want to install solar energy panels but who earn more than $100,000 in combined incomes. This is a real slap in the face from a government that talks up its environmental credentials but makes a determined effort to stand in the way of those who want to switch to solar power, both for environmental and necessity reasons. The environment minister himself should be ashamed. It is a budget that talks big and delivers nothing for seniors and carers. It is a budget that shows in a devastating fashion that the reality of the Rudd government is not what it promised before the election.

In the short time I have left can I touch on the area of my portfolio responsibility. Again, we see a situation where a minister did not stand up for his portfolio and did not do what was promised prior to the election. The trade minister spun some sort of deception that he was going to not only expand the EMDG Scheme but make sure that that expansion was funded. But, when the budget was handed down, we found two things. The first was that there is going to be another review—and we knew that was coming!—so whatever is done now may be reviewed and changed. Also, this much vaunted extra money only goes for one year. So you expand the scheme, you get all these people in, you get the momentum up and you pay that year. In the following year, what is going to fund those applications? We do not know the answer to that. The minister is unable to explain it, and we have to wonder whether or not he went to the ERC process to ensure that his portfolio needs were met. It is just another example of a promise not delivered, a promise that has been glossed in spin and a promise which I know will come back and not only hurt the exporters of Australia but show just how shallow this government is in its commitments.

Let me conclude by saying that the evidence is quite clear and yet, at the same time, disturbing and distressing. This budget is vintage Labor. It is a high-taxing, high-spending budget that rewards those the Labor Party favour and punishes those they do not. It is a budget that lets down the people of regional and rural Australia and exposes the truth behind Labor’s claim to govern for all Australians. It is a budget that encapsulates the hidden ethos of the Rudd Labor government, because it is a budget dedicated more to maintaining appearances and manipulating an image than to delivering on the ground.

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