Luke Hartsuyker (Cowper, National Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2010-2011 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2010-2011. Over the last week, we have seen some quite erratic voting by the Independents. I was certainly stunned early last week when the Independents voted against supporting their rural students. The fact that the member for Lyne would vote with the government, to prop up an ailing government, rather than voting to give assistance to students, is really amazing. I hope he is held accountable for that on the streets of Port Macquarie and Taree because rural students do it tough getting to university.

All university students sacrifice a lot to get further education and further qualifications. The reality is, if you have to move away from home, which many rural students face, that becomes a much more difficult task with the cost of accommodation. It seems incredible that these government reforms would take away the independent youth allowance pathway from students in regional areas. It seems even more incredible that the member for Lyne, who holds himself out to allegedly represent students in a regional area, would vote against providing much-needed support for regional students. In his electorate, the member for Lyne has two major regional centres—Port Macquarie and Taree. I hope the families of students from those two major centres hold him accountable for the decision he has made to vote against assistance for students and to support a review.

Labor has a history of review after review after review and this is just one more. There is no guarantee of the outcomes that students will obtain. In fact, when Labor and the four regional Independents voted to kill off the youth allowance bill in the House of Representatives it was a dark day. Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Labor government did a last-minute deal with the Independents to avoid the embarrassment of supporting the coalition’s bill. You would think that the interests of students would take precedence over propping up a sick and ailing government. But it does not stop there.

Later in the week we had the same member for Lyne voting against small business. Not to be content with voting for a review rather than voting for assistance to students, he said, ‘I can improve on that. I can knock my small business constituency as well. I can kick them in the guts as well.’ When faced with the opportunity to vote for a bill which would have relieved the paperwork burden of small businesses—and there is a very large small business constituency in the electorate of Lyne, there are many hardworking people in small business in Port Macquarie and many small businesses in Taree and other centres—what did their local member do? He said, ‘I’m going to vote for me. I’m going to prop up an ailing government. I’m going to ignore the calls from small businesses to take away the paperwork burden, I’m going to ignore those calls and I’m going to vote for me and I’m going to vote for this ailing government.’

I hope he stands condemned by those small businesses, because every member of this House knows—or should know—the stresses and the strains that small businesses are under due to the endless pages upon pages of administrative work that they have to do every month. If it is not a BAS it is some other thing that they have to do. There are endless compliance burdens. The opposition provided the Independents with a chance to stand with small business and to demonstrate their small business credentials, but what did they do? They dogged it.

All the member for Lyne could do was vote to support that ailing government. ‘Voted for me’—that is what he did. He should stand condemned for that. In going for the hat-trick, what was the next part of the puzzle? It was to profess support for a carbon tax. The people of his electorate would really love a carbon tax! We know that if we impose a tax the planet will suddenly get cooler. The climate will become temperate. It will be a perfect temperature every single day—not too hot; not too cold. All you have to do is impose a new tax.

The member for Lyne is no doubt going to go down the main street of Port Macquarie and tell them, ‘This carbon tax is going to be good for you because you will all be fully compensated.’ If you believe that you believe in the tooth fairy. We have a Prime Minister who said, ‘There will be no carbon tax under a government that I lead’ and she was proven to have told a porky. I guess you could argue that there is no carbon tax under a government she leads because Bob Brown is leading and she is just the one who lives in the Lodge. It is an interesting conundrum.

So in one week of parliament the member for Lyne firstly voted against regional students to prop up the government. He then voted against small business by voting to burden them with the paperwork and responsibility for administering Labor’s Paid Parental Leave scheme. You have to say that it makes sense for the government to administer such a scheme. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever for this scheme to be administered by employers. The member for Lyne should have understood that but he clearly did not.

Then the final issue was the carbon tax. That was the last element of the hat-trick: professing to support a carbon tax that is going to drive up the cost of electricity—

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