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

I rise tonight to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and cognate bills, or rather on the Rudd Labor government’s latest budget, which will have a number of alarming effects on rural and regional Australia, particularly in my constituency of Maranoa. I fear there is nothing good in this budget for the people of regional and rural Australia. Indeed, with the deficit proposed in this coming year of $58 million there will be a $9,000 debt for every man, woman and child in Australia—every child born today will have a $9,000 debt stamped on their birth certificate, compliments of the Rudd Labor government.

Last year, regional Australians copped a $1 billion budget cut. In this year’s budget there will be some $908 million less in the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry portfolio to spend in rural and regional Australia next year. There is a massive $35.877 million cut to the government’s funding of Australia’s vital quarantine and biosecurity programs, which could well have the net effect of threatening our reputation. In the past, our robust quarantine measures have always protected us.

We have already experienced the economic destruction caused by equine influenza, which the minister spoke about briefly in question time today. And we have already witnessed—from afar, thankfully—the devastation caused by foot-and-mouth disease in England in 2001. We must prevent that happening at all costs. With these sorts of cuts to the budget, we wonder whether the minister is truly serious about quarantine and the protection of our clean and green image. At the same time as the government is cutting its contribution to quarantine and biosecurity programs, it is raising taxes for user charges on exports. Exporters have no choice but to use the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, whose charges are going to be increased by some 1,352 per cent. That is going to destroy jobs. It is going to cost the industry dearly. The industry has no say; they are just going to have to cop it—another new tax by this Labor government.

Despite the Labor Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Tony Burke, claiming that food security is of paramount importance, this cruel government has axed the respectable Land and Water Australia and slashed $12 million from the budget of the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation. What a time to be cutting agricultural research, the very industry that in the December quarter kept this economy from dipping into recession. It was the best performing sector of any export industry sector in Australia.

The Rudd government is talking up the need for the emissions trading scheme legislation being in place before the Prime Minister goes off to Copenhagen with his tribe of media advisers and of course the press gallery. He wants it in place so that when he goes to Copenhagen in December he will be able to tell the rest of the world what he wants to do rather than listen to what the world, collectively, would like to agree to. We have Minister Burke at the same time slashing research funding which could have the net effect of reducing our global footprint in the agricultural sector. But, no, the minister has already proposed to cut that agricultural research program.

Typically, Labor’s vendetta against the bush does not stop at rural research. Allocation for drought assistance has been reduced and will be terminated in 2011, after the next federal election. That is the proposition. So much for supporting our farmers and our small businesses through these very tough times. In a blow to the horticultural industry, the Rudd government has made a 50 per cent cut in funding to administer the Horticulture Code of Conduct. Agriculture was the only sector to record, as I said earlier, growth in the December quarter, yet this Labor government has a complete disinterest in this industry. That has been proven in this budget. Claiming himself a country boy, the Prime Minister paraded himself before the last federal election saying, ‘Up there at Nambour, I grew up in a country town on a farm.’ Goodness me!

This total lack of interest in regional Australia was on display when he allowed his Treasurer to abolish the area consultative committees across Australia. Labor promised prior to the election that the role of the area consultative committees would be expanded. They would be known under the new name, the new badge—we could have lived with that—of Regional Development Australia. But the ACCs, the area consultative committees, have been shut down and 150 wonderful employees—dedicated, committed, knowledgeable employees—have received their Rudd redundancy letter. They are now out of jobs at the end of this month. Minister Albanese repeatedly assured everyone that the jobs at the ACCs were secure. Well, he did not tell the truth.

Rural and remote Australians have a right to be outraged with Senator Conroy’s handling of the communications portfolio. He and his Labor Prime Minister promised to roll out new broadband services by the end of 2008. That was a pre-election commitment. ‘We’re going to rule it out by the end of 2008.’ Well, 2008 has been and gone, and there has been nothing except a raid on the communications trust fund. The Labor government wasted around $20 million on running a flawed tender process for its original national broadband proposal and then terminated it—$20 million of taxpayers’ money for nothing, squandered in a reckless way with no direction. Then, to cover up the obvious fact that their tender process was a dismal failure, they announced that they were going to build their own high-speed broadband network. But, despite their grand promise to build a $43 billion network, the budget actually provides no funding certainty beyond a planned initial investment of $4.7 billion. There is rhetoric on one hand and no action on the other. It will take some eight years and only extend, under their proposition, to 90 per cent of Australians. If we look at the fine print of the Labor government’s plan, it is revealed that this new network will not extend to towns with populations of less than 1,000, which means that nearly all of my electorate of Maranoa will be denied access to fast internet. Yet it will be their tax dollars that will be funding the debt that will be building this network. And it looks like they are going to have to wait for a change of government to get it right.

The Labor government wasted no time in ripping off rural Australia when it came to government. It gutted the communications fund which was established by the Liberal and National parties in government and was going to provide a perpetual fund for rural telecommunications. It was going to be their safety net. Now the Australian Broadband Guarantee program has become the latest victim of Labor’s economic management. This was a very popular program introduced by the Liberal and National parties to provide subsidised support for Australians living in broadband black spots. But this Labor government has announced budget cuts of $23.1 million over two years to the Australian Broadband Guarantee program and it has confirmed it will phase it out entirely. This Rudd Labor government just loves to bash the communities of the bush. It is a bush basher. That is the only way that I can describe this budget: it is a budget that bashes the bush, and it is the Labor Party that is doing it.

Rural and regional students are also being left behind by this Rudd government when it comes to education. In a slap in the face for these students, the Treasurer has made changes to the Commonwealth accommodation scholarships which will negatively impact on young people in my electorate of Maranoa. Currently a scholarship provides $4,415 per annum for up to four years for eligible country students. But this will be replaced with a relocation allowance that provides $4,000 for the first year. When you look at the fine print you see there is $1,000 for each year thereafter—another impact on country students.

The Labor government clearly do not understand the difficulties facing rural students who cannot live at home while studying. This can only be evidenced by their absurd citycentric decision to force students to work 30 hours per week for 18 months to qualify for youth allowance. This change means that students will effectively be forced to work full-time whilst studying or defer their studies for two years. The Labor Party just do not get it. A student whose parents earn a combined income of  $43,000 and who lives at home and is working 15 hours per week—that is, two days a week—to support themselves would currently be able to attain eligibility for the common youth allowance to help them through their study and to pay for their books, rent and food. That student will no longer receive the common youth allowance unless they double their hours of work.

Many students in my electorate of Maranoa take a year off after school to save up for the impending costs of their tertiary education. Once again, thanks to this Labor Party and the Prime Minister, some of these students will need to wait even longer to move to the city to go on to postsecondary education. I really do fear that there are going to be students from rural and remote parts of Australia who will opt out altogether. They will not go on to further education beyond secondary education because of that gap year being extended and the inability of their parents to support them. It is going to be a tragic circumstance for so many of the students who live in rural and remote Australia.

The coalition will be fighting for rural and regional students. We have taken action in the Senate to ensure that students currently undertaking a gap year in order to qualify for youth allowance will not be unfairly disadvantaged by Labor’s retrospective budget changes—and I repeat those words ‘retrospective budget changes’—as to the independent youth allowance. These students, who have taken a year off to save for their postsecondary studies, have been completely blindsided by this Labor government. I can assure you the coalition is out there fighting to make sure that they are not left out in the cold by a Labor government that is failing students from rural and remote parts of Australia.

I am sure the area of health is dear to your heart, Mr Deputy Speaker Washer. Not only has the Prime Minister failed regional students; he has also failed the rural health system. In fact, he has failed the entire health system. Despite his promise to ‘fix’ our hospitals, not one cent of Labor’s stimulus package went into health, and then there is their ideological hatred of the private health system. Government support for private health insurance has been reduced for higher income earners and a higher surcharge has been placed on those who do not have insurance.

This will affect not only the 60,500 people in my electorate of Maranoa who have private health insurance but all Australians. Public hospital waiting lists will only get longer as people decide to lower their level of private cover or opt out altogether. The Liberal-National opposition worked hard to deliver the rebate incentives, because for every dollar spent on them two more are saved in the health system as a whole. Mr Rudd, the Prime Minister, promised again and again before the election that he would not touch the private health insurance rebate. Yet here we have another broken promise from a callous, arrogant Prime Minister and Labor government.

In another broken promise, the Prime Minister said he would not change the safety net, but now some will face higher out-of-pocket expenses because of another promise broken by this Labor government. More Australians will face increased gap payments for pathology services. Cuts to funding in this budget will see pathologists cut the level of bulk-billing and increase co-payments for patients. This will lead to poorer health outcomes, increased rates of undiagnosed illness and poorer management of chronic conditions as people avoid going to the doctor because they cannot afford to undertake pathology tests.

In a horrific blow to rural, regional and remote communities, cuts to the Medicare rebates for surgery will mean many people in rural and remote areas will miss out on vital cataract surgery. These patients rely on specialists who fly out from the cities and from the coast to perform surgery in remote communities. Dr Bill Glasson, well known to me, who chairs the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee, is an ophthalmologist who travels to Longreach three times a year to perform more than 100 procedures and 100 people are able to see again quite clearly after those very successful procedures. He relies on this rebate to pay for his equipment, the flights and other necessities in performing these important surgeries.

Another doctor from the south-east corner of Queensland flies out in his own aircraft—he has a pilots licence. He goes to Cunnamulla, Charleville and Quilpie in my electorate to perform similar cataract surgery. Yet all this will end with this cut to the Medicare rebate, and it is a tragedy. How tragic it will be for the people in rural communities to lose their sight simply because the stroke of the Treasurer’s pen is going to cut that Medicare rebate for cataract surgery.

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