Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let us call this motion moved by the member for Throsby what it is: it is just playing pure politics with people in regional and rural Australia. It is a disgraceful motion and it follows the disgraceful action by the Labor government in the lead-up to the last election. They went to communities and promised things that they knew they could not deliver on and would never deliver on. They provided false hope and in doing so they played with local communities. What the Labor Party did in the lead-up to the last election with this round 5 funding was a disgrace and this motion is a disgrace because it follows on from that despicable behaviour.

I remember having to go to the small community of Pomonal, which had been promised some money for their hall. It was promised by a Labor Party government. It was a political stunt to try to wedge hardworking local members by playing games. I explained to that community that that was what this was. The Labor Party were desperately spending. They were going into local communities promising this and that, knowing that they would never be able to deliver.

Meanwhile, good hardworking coalition MPs were going around talking to their communities trying to find out what projects they wanted and needed. They had discussions with the local communities and said: 'The Labor Party have made a mess of our budget. The Labor Party cannot run the economy. We're going to have to try to fix the nation's finances. In doing that we will deliver on local projects, but we can't deliver on all of them. We can't just splash the cash around willy-nilly, because ultimately someone will have to pay for it.' You look these people in the eye and say: 'Because of the way the Labor Party went about governing, it will be your children who will have to pay the price for this mismanagement. It will be your children who will have to pick up the tab, the bill. That is why we have to be responsible. That is why we will selectively look at projects, work with you and hopefully deliver them for you.'

It was easy because you can explain the Labor Party's record with round 2, round 3 and round 4 of the RDA where they spent the money not in areas where the community wanted it spent but in areas for their own base political purposes. The community understood that. All of a sudden in round 5 they are saying: 'We'll splash it around here and splash it around there. We will splash it around everywhere.' The community were sick to death of it. They will not buy into these political games that Labor play. Get serious about how you go about developing policy and developing your community engagement because, if you keep playing these types of games, you are going to have a very long, deserved stint in opposition.

In my electorate of Wannon we are going to deliver on the projects that we took to the election. I am proud of the commitments we took to the election: $10 million for an integrated cancer care centre; $25 million, matched by $25 million, for the repair and upgrade of the Great Ocean Road; and $3.2 million to fix the Condah-Hotspur road to make it safer for our school buses to carry schoolkids, to make it safer for mums and dads driving on those roads and to make it more efficient for the log trucks. That had been an RDA priority through round 2, round 3 and round 4, yet when the Labor Party came to splash the cash in RDA round 5 they did not even consider it. This is a sham of a motion. You were a sham of a government and you deserve a long time in opposition. (Time expired)

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