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

I am glad you prompted me, Member for New England, because you are coming into focus. This budget is underpinned by the carbon tax. It was the elephant in the room when the Treasurer made his speech here on Tuesday night; it hardly got a mention. I was on ABC Radio on Wednesday morning in Tamworth. I followed the member for New England, and I could not believe my ears. He was telling me that the carbon tax is going to be the saviour of the beef industry—that the carbon tax is going to help abattoirs. He has been grumbling away over here about the negativity coming from members about regional Australia. I suggest he goes up to his electorate and listens to the negativity that is going on there.

In an attempt to save his seat, the member for New England has stuck to this government like a limpet—mind you, like a limpet stuck to the side of the Titanic. We are seeing legislation come into this place, supported by the crossbenchers, that is a direct affront to the people of regional Australia. We are talking about the wonderful opportunities for farmers under the carbon tax—the fund that was being set up, which was the great idea of the member for New England, the Carbon Farming Initiative! I had a farmer in the other day who understood that there was money to be made from the Carbon Farming Initiative. But there is a catch: you actually have to sign up to the Carbon Farming Initiative. So farmers out there who have been succeeding, who are at the top of their game, actually have to sign up to the Carbon Farming Initiative and have someone from the government come along and suggest how they run their operations.

So we have Big Brother creeping into everything we do. That is the issue that we have seen in this place for the last five years. Every piece of legislation that has come through, every idea that has come from that side, is about restricting growth, about taking away incentive. Everything is about regulation and greenness. We have a Murray-Darling Basin Plan that has been cast through the eyes of 10 years of drought, and now we are seeing that the people who are going to face the attack are the people who are actually producing something. This budget is a mix of sugar hits and taking money away from people who actually produce things. It provides the lowest amount of spending for roads in at least 10 years.

It is interesting to note that the $8 billion that will be paid in interest by this government in the next 12 months would build two Melbourne to Brisbane rail lines. That is just the interest bill. If there is one great frustration in regional Australia, it is knowing that in five years we have gone from being a country that had money in the bank, that was in charge of its own destiny, to having to increase the debt level of this government to debts of up to $300 billion. For anyone out there to say anything else is not in tune with the people of regional Australia. I have just spent six weeks living in the front of my car, touring my electorate, and people who have voted Labor all their lives have come up to me in absolute despair and disgust, saying, 'When can we have an election? We have had enough.' That is what is underpinning this budget. This budget reinforces that mindset in the people of regional Australia.

The member for New England has been going crook about the negativity in this debate. I can tell you that the negativity in regional Australia at the moment is palpable, and that is because of the mismanagement by the members of the government benches. The sooner we can put an end to this, the better.

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