Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

He has been wounded by my criticism. The childcare centre program was to include 260 childcare centres. It is now going to be 38. None of the others apparently need to be built. 222 will go the way of the dodo and never see the light of day—another one of this government’s broken promises in the education area, along with computers in schools, the Primary Schools for the 21st Century program, which has been a well-documented fiasco, the trade training centres and the School Chaplaincy Program.

I turn now to one of the issues that specifically relate to South Australia—that is, the great big new mining tax, which will do tremendous damage to the resources sector in my state of South Australia. You do not need to take my word for it. Marius Kloppers from BHP has already warned that dividend payments to their 540,000 shareholders will be hit by the federal government’s great big new tax on mining. BHP Billiton has made it clear that all of their projects in Australia are on the table, including the Olympic Dam expansion in South Australia at Roxby Downs, which is the largest mining project in South Australia and one of the largest in Australia and the world. If properly expanded, it would be the largest copper mine in the world. That is at risk as a consequence of the government’s great big new tax on mining.

What have we heard from the South Australian Labor MPs and senators on that subject? Nothing but a full throated endorsement of the great big new tax on mining that will put at risk the Olympic Dam expansion in my state. Another great mining project in my state that is at risk as a consequence of the great big new tax on mining is the Prominent Hill copper and gold mine in South Australia. Neil Hamilton, the Chairman of OZ Minerals, said that his company would not be able to finish a feasibility study for a potential $300 million project at its Prominent Hill copper and gold mine in South Australia until more detail of the new tax is known. We know that Prominent Hill and Olympic Dam are just two of the mining projects that are at risk in South Australia as a consequence of this government’s fatally flawed great big new tax on mining, which is a dagger pointed at the heart of the Australian economy and, in this case, of the South Australian economy.

I would also like to talk a little bit about some projects in my own electorate. I can tell you that, if the coalition gets elected at the coming election—and we hope that will be sooner rather than later so that we can put this country out of the misery it is enduring under this Rudd Labor government—then I will be fighting in my electorate of Sturt for funding for a number of the black spot projects that need to be done. I will doing so from a position where we will have a Treasurer and a Prime Minister who can actually manage the books of the country, a Prime Minister and a Treasurer in Tony Abbot and Joe Hockey, who will be capable of ensuring that we get back into surplus again and we pay down the Labor Party’s $93 billion debt, which does not even include the $18 billion for the National Broadband Network and other projects, so that we will be in a position to fund the important black spot projects in my electorate that this budget is silent on.

I am talking about projects like the improvement of Gorge Road between the Newton shops and the Athelstone shops and of Fosters Road at Oakden. The state Labor government has put very significant housing developments at Oakden and around that part of my electorate, and on the other side of the road in the federal member for Adelaide’s electorate. This has brought thousands of new residents to the area without any consequent thought for the improvement of Fosters Road, which is now a very dangerous road in the north of my electorate. Sudholz Road in Gilles Plains is used by hundreds of thousands of vehicles every year. There have been fatalities there over the years and there was a very nasty accident only last week. These are the projects that need to be attended to in my electorate.

18:21:49

St Bernards Road runs from Magill right through to Newton. St Bernards Road is one of the more dangerous roads in my electorate. There was recently a very sad fatality on St Bernards Road which needs to be raised in the House. Sarah Bridge lived in St Bernards Road in Magill. Unfortunately, Sarah Bridge’s partner, John Swindell, and his 10-year-old Bichon Frise dog, Tilly, were killed crossing the road at St Bernards Road and Shakespeare Avenue. That is not the only tragic loss that has occurred on St Bernards Road over the years, but it is the most recent one. Action needs to be taken to ensure that those kinds of fatalities do not occur again.

There has been a longstanding campaign to try and get traffic lights at the corner of Graves Street and St Bernards Road for similar reasons. The demands, the calls and the pleas for this to occur have fallen on deaf ears in the state government and in the federal government. We have been campaigning for traffic lights on Lower North East Road, Dernancourt, where there is a significant shopping centre and where, in the last few years, an infant child was killed trying to cross the road. We have been asking the state government to do the necessary studies for traffic lights at Graves Street at St Bernards Road in Newton, at Shakespeare Avenue and St Bernards Road in Magill and at Lower North East Road in Dernancourt. The state government’s action has been slow and paltry. If the coalition gets elected at the coming election, I will be fighting for this kind of sensible spending on important projects in my electorate of Sturt. I will be doing that from a foundation of good economic and budgetary management—from a foundation of real fiscal conservatism. I will be fighting for the improvement of roads like Fosters Road at Oakden, Gorge Road at Newton and Sudholz Road at Gilles Plains. I have already mentioned St Bernards Road.

There is one other subject I would like to touch on and it is a subject that has been close to my heart. When I was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing, I initiated, for people suffering from a mental illness, the Medicare items for social workers, occupational therapists and psychologists. In this budget, the government abolished the Medicare items for social workers and occupational therapists. After a short campaign, they announced a delay until April next year. I assume that is so that the social workers and occupational therapists can get their affairs in order before their businesses are ruined. The most important reason people with a mental health problem were given access to these Medicare schedule items was so that they would get the treatment they needed, treatment they could not otherwise get because there are not enough psychiatrists and because they could not afford to pay for the services themselves. This government has ripped those Medicare items away from the most vulnerable people in the community—people who are usually homeless, who are almost always of low socioeconomic status and who have a mental illness. The government should hang their heads in shame for not being able to find it in their hearts to support those people. (Time expired)

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