Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for her question. I want to congratulate the honourable member for Capricornia for the work that she did in making sure that we got mum and dad operators and mum and dad truck drivers back on the road. We are making sure that we look after the people at home who are trying to do the books, pay the bills, pay the local tyre merchant, pay the local fuel merchant and pay the local mechanic. We are making sure that we can move produce, whether it is cattle or goods. We are also helping people in the furniture removalist business to make sure that they are not compromised by this odious form of legislation brought in by the Greens, the Labor Party and the Independent Mr Windsor.

We can also see that, as Bryan Smith of Rocky's Own Transport said, axing the tribunal is a fantastic outcome for the nation delivered by our country MPs and the government yesterday. It is a great result for mum and dad owner-operators and a good result for the free market. Ultimately the RSRT regulations were interfering with free enterprise, trying to tell owner-drivers what to charge for their businesses. This does not happen in other businesses.

We have seen that the Labor Party have real form in making sure that they attack the working men and women of this nation and the working mums and dads of this nation. There is still a challenge because if at the forthcoming election the Labor Party, the Greens and the Independents get back in government then they will bring back this piece of legislation and put those mum and dad owner-operators out of work again. We know they will do that. Let us ask ourselves this quick question. Who would bring back the carbon tax? They would. Who would bring back weak borders? They would. Who would put mum and dad operators out of business? They would. We can see quite obviously that they have other things. We can see that the latest one is an attack not only on country working men and women but also on every suburb. We see their negative gearing policy that they are about to bring forward. It is like the Hindenburg in search of a match. Here it comes to make sure that every person who has bought a house is afflicted by a Labor government that believes something is morally wrong with negatively gearing houses. That is where they are going to earn their money. They are going to earn their money once more by going out to the well they always go to. Who do they go to to get their money? It is mums and dads. Mums and dads are the only place they know to take their money from so they can run their other policies.

But we will stand behind McDonald Brothers Transport at Nemingha, we will stand behind Martin's at Scone and we will stand behind Kelly's in Armidale. We will stand behind the working men and women of Biloela. We will stand behind the working men and women of Mackay. We will stand behind the working men and women of Emerald. We will look after Central Queensland. We will look after Australia. We will keep those opposite out of government.

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Mr Mitchell interjecting—

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