Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Port Adelaide said that we could not find 10 minutes there to talk about our environmental record. I just wish we had 20 minutes each, because when you set the hypocrisy of the motion that has been moved today against the extraordinarily bad record of the Labor Party over six years, it must be with a sense of shame that the member for Port Adelaide stood up to talk about environmental management issues. Unlike those opposite, we are taking real action to address environmental issues in our community. That is clearly evidenced by the commitment of $2 billion in the recent budget in tight financial times for a broad range of natural resource management and environmental initiatives across Australia. That is $2 billion for things like $1 billion for Landcare, as the minister said; $2.55 billion for the Emissions Reduction Fund; a supercomputer for the Bureau of Meteorology to provide improved delivery of forecasting and warning; $50 million over the next four years for the 20 Million Trees program; a coastal river recovery initiative to protect our waterways; and a whale and dolphin protection plan. Our Antarctic strategy is back on track with a plan to replace the Aurora Australis and maintain our Antarctic bases, some $68 million to maintain our important Antarctic bases.

The member for Port Adelaide talks about real projects. Let me talk about some of the regional things that are happening that he might be interested in. There is a multiplicity of projects delivered through 15 regional natural resources management organisations across the country. They will ensure that that important nexus between community needs and resources is as strong as it can be, where those community level priorities are the things that drive project deliver That is unlike those opposite, where you had a thought bubble, a rollout of incredible amounts of taxpayer money and then very little policy effect resulting from the extraordinary expenditure. If he wants some examples I will give him some.

The member for Flinders, the environment minister, came to Tasmania about a year before the election and committed to $3 million of funding for a healthier Tamar River. That is going to do some important things for my community. It will fund a three-year program of raking to control silt in the Tamar River. Some form of silt removal has been a feature of that river's management strategy for over 100 years. So this is real money for a real effect. Compare and contrast that with the promises made by the state Labor government. I will not talk about my Labor opponent in the last election; he made no promises for the Tamar River. But the state Labor government, prior to the 2010 election, promised $6.65 million for the Tamar and delivered absolutely nothing in terms of a silt mitigation effect. We also have some money put aside for how we can turn the current archaic sewerage system around Launceston into something that is more First World so that, when there is a heavy rain event, sewage does not pollute the Tamar River. Some quick wins are going to be achieved there and we have a critical path to turning the current infrastructure of that sewerage system into something that is much more First World.

We have two valuable Green Army projects, one from King's Bridge to Duck Reach and another from King's Bridge to the Tailrace, to do things like biodiversity audits, seeding, fencing and making sure that young people who do that work gain some valuable skills they can use for their own purposes and future careers. We have a project that has been proposed by the George Town Council to capture stormwater before it goes into the rivulet and directing it, using a mixture of solar and wind power, to irrigate the playing fields in George Town. That is what you call a real local project.

There are so many good projects for my community that have both strong interest and support, and these things are long overdue. So how dare those opposite, like the member for Port Adelaide, come in here and engage in such rampant hypocrisy after six years of their policy record: the train wreck of waste and thoughtless ideology over substance; the carbon tax which cost $15.4 billion over two years, yet emissions go up; the Home Insulation Program, which resulted in four deaths, 224 home fires, 70,000 repairs and $500 million to fix the problems it caused; the bungled Green Loans program—and I can go on and on. What I ask the member for Port Adelaide and those opposite to do is spare us the lectures and hypocrisy, get out of our way and let us fix your mess. (Time expired)

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