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

I, too, rise to speak on the motion brought to the House by the member for Grayndler. Before I start my comments, I might make mention of comments made by the previous speaker, particularly about the constitutional recognition of local government. The reason that that did not get up in the last term was the shambolic state of the government of that time. I was on the committee that looked into that and I can tell you that the coalition were in favour of constitutional recognition of local government. As a former mayor, I know better than most about that; the former minister was frustrated in not having enough time for that discussion to take place. At the critical moment, in one of the Rudd-Gillard changeovers—when there were mass sackings and the minister was sacked by the then Prime Minister—the referendum had absolutely no hope at all. We need to get our facts straight here: the reason it did not get up was the shambolic nature of the previous government.

I am also surprised that the previous speaker, the member for a regional area in Tasmania and a mother, would be opposed to a paid parental leave scheme that was going to be beneficial to mothers in her electorate who work in small businesses and on farms. I thought that supporting mothers into the workforce was something that the Labor Party actually supported; I did not realise it was something they opposed.

We need to talk about why we are at this point. Why did the government have to freeze the financial assistance grants to local government in the budget? If you look around Australia you will see the reasons: the amount of money that was squandered over the previous six years starting with the BER program. I have a school at Louth on the Darling River in the western part of my electorate which now has a classroom for each student—four students, four classrooms. They had four students, and the previous government bought them each a classroom. I guess they are the envy of other schools, but it would have been nice if they had spent that money in other areas. I have a builder in Moree who is owed $642,000 because of the mismanagement of that BER program. He is not likely to get his money. What has that done for the regional economy?

How about we talk about what the live cattle trade has done for regional Australia? The devastation that has caused to the finances of communities across regional Australia. The shadow minister has the hide to come in here and put this motion about what this government is doing to local government.

I might say that the coalition government next year will be doubling Roads to Recovery to those councils. In many of my councils that will actually have a positive net effect over the FAGs grants. We will be removing the carbon tax. Despite the fact that the Labor Party says they support the removal of the carbon tax, they do not seem to understand you actually have to vote for it in the Senate if you want something to be repealed. You cannot go out before an election and say, 'We support the repeal of the carbon tax; we don't believe in a carbon tax.'

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