Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Aston interjects, but what he does not understand is that significant suburbs with thousands and thousands of people do not have enough copper so, if you are going to dig it up, why wouldn't you put fibre down?

Mr Tudge interjecting—

Why would you just put copper? Why would you put in an old technology—dig it up and spend the money. If you talk about waste, why would you dig up the ground and lay another bit of copper, that is yesterday's technology. Why wouldn't you put fibre in the ground? That is the ill-thought-out Leader of the Opposition's plan on fibre.

To be quite frank, the Leader of the Opposition has not had much input into this plan because he is not interested. He did not even turn up at his broadband policy launch at the last election. I have a little advice for the opposition: saying that you are going to cut our National Broadband Network is not a vote winner in outer metropolitan areas. I do not want to give them too many tips for the next election campaign, but scrapping the National Broadband Network probably is not the right policy to have. Once again, it is about building that critical infrastructure, whether it is roads, whether it is rail or whether it is broadband. This is what this government sat down to do.

I have to talk about another project in my local electorate that is incredibly important. Obviously being a member from Adelaide and from the state of South Australia, I consider water a particularly important issue. I recognise that it has been this government that has had to take up, once again, after neglect from the previous government, the issue of water and the management of the Murray.

For a while there I thought this might be a bipartisan issue. Certainly when the Leader of the Opposition came to Adelaide during the election campaign he inferred it was going to be a bipartisan issue. He was going to sign up to the Murray-Darling plan. Of course, after the election he made it clear that he had no such intention to do anything like that. In fact, in his response to the Queensland floods, he indicated that he would scrap the buyback of water, that he did not think buying back water was important. Now that was of great concern for people of Adelaide. Not only is restoring the Murray critically important, but once again the Leader of the Opposition had gone back on his election commitment.

This Labor government is getting on with the job and, in terms of infrastructure, I am very pleased that this federal government has invested into two projects—Waterproofing the South, Stage 1, and Waterproofing the South, Stage 2. In Waterproofing the South, Stage 2, the federal government has committed $14 million to develop stormwater harvesting in the Onkaparinga Council area. There will be a number of sites which will harvest stormwater and stop it from going out into the sea, which does affect the seagrasses, harvest it and then use it for watering parks and gardens. So is a very exciting project. There is a contribution from the council, $7 million, and $7 million from the state government. This is an example of how state government, federal government and local council can work together constructively. It might not be known to the Leader of the Opposition that one can work constructively and not just be negative about everything. Good outcomes can be reached for the Australian people. In this case good outcomes on water conservation were achieved for the people of Kingston, so this is a particularly important project.

There has been a significant increase in investment in local infrastructure in my electorate. One in particular is the Woodcroft Library and Neighbourhood Centre—whose opening I was very pleased to be able to attend—which was funded by the council with a contribution by the federal government under the Green Precincts Fund. This is an incredibly exciting centre which has solar electricity and hot water systems, a rainwater harvesting system, smart building controls and artificial lighting and air conditioning that are set according to outside conditions in order to reduce energy. It is a wonderful, energy efficient building. It is an opportunity not just for the building to be energy and water efficient, but for local residents to go down and look at some of the things that have been done and to take some ideas away. It is trying to extend that information. This is, once again, investment in local areas that have not been invested in before. I am pleased that this budget builds on that investment, ensures that there is investment in the areas that are important—training, hospitals, healthcare, roads and rail—and continues to build our nation and to build, support and create jobs, just as we did during the global financial crisis. I commend the budget and continue to support the important initiatives in my local electorate.

Sitti ng suspended from 13:02 to 16:01

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