Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to support the Leader of the Nationals in this matter of public importance: the failure of the budget to provide economic security for regional Australians. If I may, before I address the topic in general I might address some of the comments that have been made by the government benches in this debate.

The minister for regional Australia started off, and his contribution was quite extraordinary. Never before has there been a minister for regional Australia who can put together so many words and say so little. He spoke about the input through Regional Development Australia. It might be quite appropriate that the member for Newcastle followed because she has been a great beneficiary of the regional Australia program with the $7 million she got for the art gallery. It was just a shame that the residents of Newcastle did not want the thing, and spent days chained to the fig trees out the front complaining about the redevelopment. That is as far as the regional development of this government goes.

Regional Development Australia has been a huge disappointment. I spoke to a director in the last week who expressed his frustration at the time that he has allocated to regional Australia for such a poor result. In my part of the world there are some very good people who are involved in those committees, people who have given up a lot of their time. For someone who represents a third of New South Wales, which I would have thought was a regional electorate, to have missed the last two rounds of regional development funding—to my knowledge there was only one allocation made west of the range—this has been a huge disappointment. There have been a lot of meetings and discussions but no real action.

The member for Newcastle also mentioned how much she enjoyed sitting in the BER hall when she was in regional Australia. I suggest she go to Windeyer, in New South Wales, because they have a brand new classroom under the BER. It is lovely; it is just a shame it was opened a month before the school shut down. Perhaps we could go to Louth—they have a new classroom under the BER, which is lovely because they now have a classroom for each child in the school. Never before have we seen such a lost opportunity. The theme of this discussion of a matter of public importance is the economic direction of regional Australia and, to describe the mood at the moment, it is one of frustration and disappointment. The people have seen the large amounts of funding that were allocated, but unfortunately they have seen it go to projects that really have not benefitted the people in the area. While we are on the BER, which was to be a stimulus package to help tradespeople, right across my electorate we have people who are still owed vast amounts of money. Indeed, in this place on Monday there was a builder from the town of Moree who is owed $642,000 through the mismanagement of the BER. He will be lucky if his business survives. This is what is underpinning. You cannot gauge the success of what a government is doing by just measuring things in dollar terms.

Government is about leadership, and what this country is lacking at the moment is government giving the people that it governs the confidence to actually get on and do things. That is what is happening in regional Australia. The people do not have the confidence to expand their business, buy the property next door, buy a new house or whatever. They do not have confidence in the future. As we have heard the members from the other side say that they are the ones who represent regional Australia, I would like them to go to the streets of Dubbo, Mudgee, Moree, Narrabri, Condobolin, Cobar—any of those places—and listen to what the people out there on the streets have to say.

I will say one other thing, and that is this budget—

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