Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to address Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014. The bills seek appropriation authority from parliament for the measures announced since the 2013-14 budget. In total these bills seek to appropriate $14.8 billion for government departments and agencies. When considering these bills, I think about the concerns and funding needs in my electorate of Paterson. Like all electorates, we face a range of pressing issues; however, the critical issues in my area are: funding for local roads; addressing mobile phone black spots; improving digital television reception; and employment.

Under Labor's reign, road funding in my electorate eroded. As I travel around the electorate of Paterson, from Dungog to Raymond Terrace, from Nelson Bay to Maitland, from Metford to Forster and from Gresford to Nabiac, the common concern amongst the locals is the condition of their local roads. As the elected representative for Paterson, I fought hard for and delivered real federal cash under the Howard government for local roads in Dungog, Great Lakes, Port Stephens and Maitland LGAs. The last six years of the Labor government saw little or nothing spent on local government roads in urgent need of repair.

Shortly the F3 link road, now rebranded the Hunter Expressway, will become a reality when it opens. However, I would like to remind the House that it was the coalition that committed the funding during the 2007 election campaign for the F3 link road between Seahampton and Branxton and it was the member for Hunter who said it should not be funded. I refer to the front page of the Maitland Mercury on 26 November 2007 when he said that he did not think the project was viable or doable. So it is interesting that the Labor Party finally succumbed to public pressure and funded this project.

I was particularly pleased when last year I was able to speak on the joint announcement from the New South Wales and federal governments regarding the funding for the duplication of the Tourle Street Bridge. I have got to say that there was a fair amount of lobbying of Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss to earn his support. Whilst the Tourle Street Bridge is not in my electorate, it serves the people of my electorate who go from the bay to Newcastle each day or, conversely, come into the Williamtown RAAF base or Newcastle Airport from the west. Years ago the former New South Wales Labor government replaced the ageing Tourle Street two-lane bridge with another two-lane bridge. Now that was real smart, because had they built the additional two lanes on that bridge and made it four lanes at the time it would only have cost $15 million extra. Today it will cost in excess of $100 million to provide that same infrastructure. Incompetency is Labor by another name.

The same could be said for the Scone level crossing as it also received funding once the coalition government came to power. For years the member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon, has made much song and dance and all we have seen is money for studies. It was time for rubber to hit the road. People needed action not news articles, and now the coalition federal government has committed $45 million and the New South Wales coalition state government is offering $45 million and we will see an end to the delays there where the town gets cut in half because the coal trains are going through.

Local government road funding remains a big issue in the region. Labor neglected our region over two terms of government. I will continue to work with Dungog, Great Lakes, Port Stephens and Maitland councils to fight for better and safer roads for the area to build on the improvements that were commenced under the former Howard government.

As I said, the issues surrounding mobile telephone reception in my electorate are a major concern to my constituents. It is no secret that around the township of Paterson, from Tocal through to Vacy and Gresford, there is little or no mobile phone reception. I also know full well the issues of capacity constraint at peak tourism times around the Tomaree Peninsula and Forster Tuncurry areas. During the election the coalition announced $100 million funding to address mobile phone black spot and capacity constraint issues. I am currently working for the Paterson area to get a fair share of the $100 million national program to improve mobile coverage throughout regional Australia as part of that program, in particular the $20 million allocated to removing or reducing mobile black spots.

I put a call out to the residents of my electorate for submissions to tell me exactly where the black spots are so that I could prepare a submission. I believe my electorate of Paterson is a prime candidate for the project and I will continue to push for improved mobile phone coverage in locations with unique coverage problems such as areas with high demand for services. Recently, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications, Paul Fletcher, visited Paterson to see the very region that I represent. We met with the residents to discuss the mobile phone black spots in the area and let them add their voices to the discussion. I was encouraged by his visit and the frankness of the concerns raised by residents and I believe it will be enough to get the necessary funding over the line.

I also raised with the parliamentary secretary the issue of NBN towers being constructed and only carrying data services when, by simply adding voice, large areas of poor mobile phone reception would be immediately addressed. Currently three towers in my electorate have commenced construction—at Booral, Nabiac and Darawank—and these services are due to go live in the third quarter of this year. The three remaining towers at Stroud Town, Stroud North and Marshdale are due to begin construction in the second quarter of this year and go live in the third or fourth quarter. A common-sense approach would be to include voice as well as high-speed data on these and other towers.

Without a doubt digital television has been the single largest issue I have ever dealt with in my electorate. In fact, over 50 per cent of the nation's complaints about digital television emanate from the electorate of Paterson. I have spoken in this House many, many times on this issue. But I have not waited around. I have proactively sought meetings with Regional Broadcasters Australia representatives, Deborah Wright, who is also the CEO of NBN television in Newcastle and the Hunter; Steve Brown, the manager of Broadcast Engineering and Technology; and Scott Briggs from Regional Broadcasters Sydney and director of Commercial and Regulatory Affairs, to discuss digital television reception in my electorate.

We formulated a plan. It was developed and has been put forward to install new re-transmission facilities at Nerong, Wallaroo and Peppers Mountain and upgrade transmitters at Dungog and Gan Gan. This follows on from a report prepared by the ACMA in April 2013 on an earlier proposal put forward by Free TV. I have also asked for the investigation of the co-location of a new commercial broadcast re-transmitting unit at Vacy to better serve the Paterson, Vacy and Gresford District. The plan was formalised. I personally briefed the Minister for Communications, Malcolm Turnbull, on 14 November. We cannot continue with poor TV reception in my area in particular for the aged communities in my electorate. I will continue to drive this issue until it is resolved.

One of the significant items proposed for appropriation in the bills is just over $540 million for the Department of Defence for overseas operations to supplement the foreign exchange movements and for the re-appropriation of amounts between the appropriation acts aligning with Defence's current work programs. It will be put towards dealing with priority pressures that were recognised by the former Labor government in their August 2013 economic statement. This includes consolidation of Defence warehousing and fuel storage remediation by Defence to secure future efficiencies. This will have an immediate positive impact on jobs and economic activity in affected regional locations.

In the 2013 election campaign, the coalition committed to stopping the underinvestment in Defence. We understood that Australians wanted to be confident that we would invest in the future security of our nation; that we would not gamble with the security of future Australians by further reducing Defence spending like Labor had done.

One of the many reasons that I am so supportive of the RAAF Base Williamtown is due to the considerable financial and social contribution it makes to the local Hunter community. The base directly employs over 3,500 people, including support staff, and injects over $280 million in salaries alone into my region. In particular, I welcomed the introduction of the government's National Australian Defence Force Family Health Program. As I said, RAAF Base Williamtown is a major employer in my area and I believe that the families of the Australian Defence Force members who have to relocate due to postings on a regular basis are deserving of additional support of free basic medical services.

As well as being the nation's premier RAAF base, Williamtown is the home of the tactical fighter element of the Air Combat Group and the Airborne Early Warning and Control element of Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group. It will also house of the planned F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning aircraft. Over the next 10 years, the government will invest $219 million for the Williamtown Redevelopment stage 2, with a time frame between 2014 and 2019 and $679 million for new air combat capability works and $200 million for runway extensions.

This is a welcome investment as unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, is a crippling issue in my electorate—especially with the downturns in the mining and manufacturing industries and the closure of many companies, in part due to the destructive carbon tax. The former Rudd-Gillard government cut almost $30 billion out of Defence through broken promises, deferments, delays and cancellations. We cannot expect our Defence Force continually to do more with less and maintain our national security at a high level. The coalition is committed to rebuilding a Defence Force that is properly resourced, equipped and managed after six long years of talk, decline and underinvestment by Labor.

The other significant item proposed for appropriation in the bill is just over $1.1 billion for the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, particularly including amounts for offshore asylum processing. This bill allocates funding for offshore processing of illegal maritime arrivals and to address the backlog of illegal maritime arrivals. Funding for more effective border protection arrangements will support a continued reduction in the number of people taking the perilous risk of ocean crossings.

In 2013, the coalition government made an election promise to establish a comprehensive regional deterrence framework with our neighbours to stop any asylum seekers transiting through our region in an attempt to gain illegal entry to Australia. Unlike the former Labor government, the coalition believes that an effective regional solution must have a single-minded focus on deterrence, preventing secondary movement of asylum seekers into our region. Labor's focus was processing and resettlement of those coming into the region and seeking to enter Australia illegally, not on deterring their arrival in the first place.

The previous government also only ever intended to send one in six arrivals offshore. In the economic statement in August last year, they budgeted to send one in six. The rest were to come to Australia and be released into the community on bridging visas or placed in held detention. In practice, they did just that: they only sent one in six arrivals offshore. They did not even provision adequately for the one in six. Contracts expired at the end of January this year. There was no money for 2013-14 year; the money ran out in January. The former Labor government left the Australian people with an enormous funding black hole. And they have the hide to stand up here and complain about conditions in camps.

This black hole would have been bigger, but the policies that the coalition government is putting into place are working and arrivals have reduced by more than 80 per cent since the election—and more recently have stopped. The coalition is fixing up an illegal arrival problem that Labor solely created: there were no arrivals before the election in 2007. This problem is one solely of Labor's making.

Now we need to address their funding black hole on offshore processing. The coalition will stop the boats by implementing our full range of policies, including ensuring that offshore processing is run properly—not the half-hearted attempt and misleading version Labor left the Australian people. Under the coalition, we have committed the funding to ensure that all those who seek to enter Australia illegally by boat will go to Nauru or Manus Island, with no exceptions. No exceptions.

Under Operation Sovereign Borders, the government is more than doubling the capacity of offshore processing at Nauru and Manus Island, reversing underfunding and undercapacity left by the previous incompetent government. The previous Labor government restored offshore processing in name only. It takes more than a press conference, a few flags and a signing ceremony to actually stop the boats.

The former Labor government left us with a big mess and a massive debt. They recklessly overspent and underplanned. So now the coalition needs to balance the books and spend a little more realistically. I pledge my support for the bills, but these bills have come about in large part because of the mismanagement of the former Labor government.

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