Bob Katter (Kennedy, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I am speaking about the communications issue and we pay tribute to the opposition in securing the changes. They have not gone anywhere near as far and the principle is still out there of user pays, so I do not want to go too far in my gratitude. Christmas spirit only extends so far! Let me say thank you and congratulate them on having achieved a certain amount.

If you apply the huge cost structures which have been applied to rural Australia and you do not give us a fair go, then you will have no export industries. That is the price that you are now paying. Last year, for the first time ever, Australia could not feed itself in fruit and vegetables. Australia cannot feed itself. It is only a matter of time before that extends across agriculture completely. Isn’t that a proud achievement for a nation which is supposed to be the food bowl of Asia, as Mr Fisher used to say? We say thank you for the movement forward from the opposition. We say to the government that you have to give us a fair go because what little you have out there you will not have for much longer. We find it so difficult to get our sons and daughters to come back into our mines and onto our farms. It is so difficult to do that and you make it infinitely more difficult if you create a situation where the city has one set of advantages which are simply not available to people outside of the great cities of Australia.

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