Barry Haase (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This is a parliament of firsts. On the occasion of the Governor-General’s speech at the opening of the 43rd Parliament, we had a remarkable situation. For the first time in 30 years the chamber was no longer blessed with the presence of the Hon. Wilson Tuckey. This parliament is worse off for his absence. It is true: you do not know what you have till it is gone. It is also the first time we have had a woman elected as Prime Minister of this country and, at the same time, a woman representing Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia. I note also that we have a hung parliament.

It is with mixed emotions I stand here today. I am not new to this House; in fact, this is the fifth time I have been elected to represent people of Western Australia. What is new is that today I stand here proudly as the first member for the new electorate of Durack. For 12 years I represented the people of the Kalgoorlie electorate, or 91 per cent of Western Australia, and now, due to the electoral boundary changes, the Federation seat of Kalgoorlie is gone—it no longer exists. They say change is like a holiday. Let me tell you, this change has been akin to holidaying in the salt mines of Siberia. With the boundary changes I have moved office from the city of Kalgoorlie-Boulder to the city of Geraldton-Greenough, from the rich red earth to the bright blue Indian Ocean. Moving office was not as easy as I had envisaged.

One thing that has not changed is the ongoing support I have had from constituents, volunteers and staff—staff that worked relentlessly in an election campaign knowing that in the end they were out of a job. They are valuable staff—staff that have endured me, I might add, for many years. I acknowledge and thank the ever-suffering Linda Crook, Pam Foulkes-Taylor, Nikki Fleming, Samantha Jones and Jacki Green, staff I was very sorry to leave behind in Kalgoorlie. It is not easy to maintain a team when you move the office 1,000 kilometres. I thank the hundreds of volunteers who manned the 108 polling booths across Durack and I thank the constituents who put their faith in me and cast a vote in my favour. The election outcome in Durack was decisive: a clear indication of the rejection of minor parties and a rejection of homespun parties that would not support a conservative coalition in Canberra. I thank all Liberal supporters for contributing to that result. I thank my son, Shane, and his girlfriend, Kate. I am greatly indebted to my brother, Murray, my sister, Dianne, her husband, Ken, and Sue Ellen and Clive for their years of unwavering support and hands-on help given whenever needed.

The new electorate of Durack, just 63 per cent of Western Australia, covers an area of over 1½ million square kilometres, or about a quarter of Australia. Durack is 61,068 times greater in size than the electorate of Wentworth and is made up of 43 local government areas, including the Shire of East Pilbara, the largest shire in the world, comprising an area of over 371,696 square kilometres—larger than the state of Victoria—from Kalumburu in the north to Merredin in the south, with Geraldton-Greenough being the major population centre.

Western Australia continues to lead the way as Australia’s premier resource investment destination. There is currently more than $150 billion worth of projects either committed or under consideration for the state during the next few years, the majority in Durack. The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA estimates that an additional 38,000 employees will be required by the minerals and energy sector in the next three to five years. Total direct employment in the minerals and energy sector currently stands at about 85,700 people.

In the waters off the Durack coast from Exmouth to the Northern Territory border we are blessed with natural gas resources which are the envy of the world. The 2009 total known resource is 151.7 trillion cubic feet. The Gorgon project alone will generate $40 billion of taxes over the next 30 years of operational life. The resource contains about 40 trillion cubic feet of LNG. That is enough to power a city of one million people for 800 years. LNG processing at Barrow Island Onslow, Devils Creek, Burrup Peninsula and James Price Point will employ thousands of Australians and contribute billions of dollars to our balance of trade.

Whilst mining and petroleum are an integral and highly valuable part of the electorate, they are only one aspect of Durack. The greatest part of the western rock lobster industry, the most valuable fishery in Australia, is between Cervantes and Kalbarri. In a good season WA produces about 80 per cent of Australia’s export grain and 70 per cent of that comes from Durack. Including all other agricultural pursuits our annual production is worth $1.9 billion.

In this newly-defined electorate of Durack, the range of resources and activities is breathtaking: iconic places, high-cost infrastructure, natural treasures and amazing people. The Argyle Diamond Mine, located in the East Kimberley region south of Kununurra, is by volume the largest producer in the world. It is a significant source of pink diamonds, producing over 90 per cent of the world’s supply. Lake Argyle, with the largest freshwater storage in mainland Australia and more than nine times the water volume of Sydney Harbour, produces water for the Ord River Irrigation Area; 14,000 hectares producing a range of horticultural products, tropical fruits, chia and sandalwood. And now, thanks to a commitment by the Howard government in 2007, stage 2 is underway.

South of Halls Creek is Wolf Creek Crater, the second largest in the world at 850 metres in diameter. Also in the Kimberley are the World Heritage listed Bungle Bungle Ranges in the Purnululu National Park. In Kununurra, Lee Scott-Virtue, founder of the Kimberley Toad Busters, and her band of over 5,000 volunteers have contributed over 1.5 million hours of volunteer time. They have removed from the environment over 500,000 cane toads in their effort to slow down the advance of this toxic pest. The Kimberley Toad Busters’ Caring for the Kimberley Environmental Forum and the ‘what’s in your backyard?’ program were recognized in the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity schedule of events calendar. These are the only Australian events to be awarded this status by the United Nations.

Well-known tourist destination Broome, home of the now famous South Sea pearls is a perfect stepping off point to explore the Kimberley wilderness. In 2009-10 Port Hedland, Australia’s largest tonnage port, had a record throughput of 178.6 million tonnes. The Dampier archipelago off Karratha, home of the Woodside LNG processing facility, is also home to an extraordinary collection of ancient Indigenous rock art. It is highly regarded as the largest concentration of petroglyphs in the world. The port of Dampier, constantly vying for record holder status with Port Hedland due to Rio Tinto’s iron ore exports, also hosts Dampier Salt, the world’s largest exporter of solar salt with 9.5 million tonnes of salt each year.

Recently there has been much local excitement created in the town of Exmouth—originally constructed in 1964 as a support town for the United States naval communications station, Harold E Holt—by speculation that a US space communications system will be housed there. Ningaloo Reef is the great attraction that brings thousands of tourists to Exmouth and Coral Bay each year. Challenging the Great Barrier Reef in its diversity, it deserves to be overwhelmingly more popular due to its ease of accessibility: drive to Coral Bay, step off the beach and it is right there.

Away from the coast, in the Murchison, we have the nation’s second-biggest uranium deposit, Yeelirrie, and, on Boolardy Station, the perfect site for the next generation radio telescope—the Square Kilometre Array. Further analysis and research continues in our bid to win this billion dollar international project. Carnarvon, at the mouth of the Gascoyne River, boasts not only a horticultural district with world’s best practice drip irrigation systems but an extremely lucrative seafood industry. The extensive iron ore deposits, both haematite and magnetite, of the Murchison and mid-west are the commercial justification for the construction of the Oakajee Port and Rail project. This deepwater port, 25 kilometres north of Geraldton, will create diversity of employment which is vital in an agricultural area suffering the vagaries of climate change.

Situated 25 kilometres south-east of Merredin in Western Australia, the Collgar wind farm project is the largest single-stage wind farm development currently under construction in the Southern Hemisphere. The wind farm will generate approximately 792,000 megawatt hours of renewable electricity per year from 111 wind turbines, enough to power 125,000 homes. Unfortunately, the central wheat belt region has this season suffered a severe shortage of rain, and we are all very thankful there is already some degree of alternative commercial diversity. For many years Merredin has been the site for airline pilot training and it supplies China Southern Airlines with flight training for hundreds of pilots a year. In addition to such diversity, we now have Globe Drill, a highly experienced exploration drilling company, testing their new GT3000 drill on the western outskirts of Merredin. They are putting down a three-kilometre test hole through granite bedrock. This will be the deepest hole attempted onshore in Western Australia and, when proved successful, the rig’s revolutionary design will slash the costs of geothermal exploration for a green-energy-hungry world.

In addition to reflecting upon the vastness in my electorate, I need to address the Governor-General’s speech. The office of the Prime Minister prepares the Governor-General’s address, outlining the government’s plans for the next three years. The people of Australia would expect to hold dear the words of the Governor-General. However, if we reflect upon the speech delivered by the Governor-General on 12 February 2008 for the opening of the 42nd Parliament, a speech we now know was littered with propaganda and false promises, we get an understanding of how much faith to place in the stated plans of the 43rd Parliament. The government was committed to a plan to build a modern Australia equipped to face the challenges of the 21st century. History tells us that the modern Australia the Labor government built was fraught with waste, incompetency and additional tax proposals.

Let us compare the outcomes versus the commitment of the 42nd Parliament, led by Prime Minister Rudd. The government committed to implementing major changes to Australia’s education system, with the aim of achieving higher standards and better results at every level of education from childhood to mature age. They committed to build 260 new childcare centres on school, TAFE, university and community sites. Only 38 were built—not one in regional Western Australia. They steadfastly said they would increase focus on high-quality child care, yet now they are seeking to reduce the maximum per child amount of childcare rebate to $7,500 per annum and suspend indexation until July 2014.

The government said they would invest $1 billion to provide computers for all years 9 to 12 students and faster broadband connections to schools. Only 345,668 new computers are on students’ desks, and none of them have been connected to fast internet. At this stage the promise of one million computers for one million students by the end of 2011 will not be fulfilled until 2016. The government committed to funding of $2.5 billion, to be provided for secondary schools to build or upgrade trade training facilities over the next 10 years. Before the 2007 election they promised one trade training centre for every one of the 2,650 secondary schools across Australia. Lo and behold, at the beginning of the current school year only one was fully operational.

The Labor government’s commitment to implementing major changes to Australia’s education system in order to achieve higher standards and better results, including mature age education, did not mention that you needed to live in the cities to be part of this achievement. They put a large group of students through emotional hell whilst they fought politically to disadvantage rural students qualifying for independent youth allowance. The $42 billion Building the Education Revolution stimulus package as part of their education commitment contained a centrepiece building program worth $14.1 billion that sought to add a new iconic building to every primary school in the country. True to Labor tradition, of course there was a cost blow-out this time to the tune of $1.7 billion. Perhaps it would have been more fiscally conservative to add the words ‘value for money’ at the time of writing the guidelines, not seven months down the track.

The government committed to a plan to reform health and hospital systems. This has not happened. In fact they are still arguing about it. It is apparent now that the government will have to reform the GST also. The government said they would also work with the private sector to build a high-speed national broadband network, the critical infrastructure platform of the 21st century, with the capacity to fundamentally transform business to overcome much of the tyranny of distance and to boost productivity growth. That has not happened. Even if it does, only 93 per cent of the Australian population will benefit and guess who the seven per cent are who miss out—it is the very people who need it most, remote Australians. There is $43 billion of further debt without any meaningful cost analysis. No astute business would do it and that, we are told, we should not worry about.

The government committed to assisting small businesses wanting to develop family-friendly practices. In fact, they imposed 9,997 new or amended regulations in less than three years—hardly family friendly. In 2008 the Governor-General told us that the government considers climate change represents one of the greatest long-term economic and environmental challenges. This turned out to be perhaps the greatest international embarrassment Australia has ever suffered. An absolute lack of global support for the government’s climate change ideology amounted to a total failure on this commitment. Now, with the failures and broken promises of 2008 in mind, let us take a look at the 2010 Governor-General’s address to the 43rd Australian Parliament.

The government say they will facilitate the creation of a parliamentary budget office and a new role of parliamentary integrity commissioner. That is quite a blatant admission of the failure of the last three years of the Labor government—a government who governed in their own political interest, not in the national interest, and treated Australians with contempt. The address speaks of:

… the need to build a high-productivity, high-participation, high-skilled economy that delivers sustainable growth for all Australians

That is a lofty aspiration. Now to balance the books they want to hit the mining industry—the saviour of the Australian economy—and rob royalty payments from the states.

We were told that in this term of parliament the government will continue the rollout of Australia’s greatest ever infrastructure enterprise, the National Broadband Network, at a cost to us of $43 billion. They talked about this last time and what has happened? There is still no transparent cost analysis and questions are emerging from consumers regarding affordability.

The government have committed to pursuing measures to increase workplace participation by disadvantaged or disengaged groups including Indigenous Australians. There is still nothing tangible being proposed to improve school attendance to ensure an education as a foundation on which to build job training. The Governor-General’s speech said:

Indigenous communities will benefit from the government’s continued investment in housing, health, early childhood, economic participation and remote service delivery …

The original promise was to build 750 new homes, rebuild 230 homes and deliver 2,500 refurbished homes. The Labor government took nearly two years to build the first house and spent more than $45 million before the first house was even finished. The address states:

… the government seeks to remove the incentive for an asylum seekers to undertake dangerous sea voyages to Australia …

What we do have is record arrivals, universal rejection of an offshore regional processing facility and still no mention of temporary protection visas.

So there we have it, my parliamentary friends—two Governor-General’s speeches, two Labor governments all interwoven with the same thread of hypocrisy. In addition, the barbecue-stopping programs, home insulation, solar panels—

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